The winter season hung weighty like a tired Monday, shivering under heavy sweaters that couldn’t fend off the draft blowing under my door. What does a Jesus-following life look like through a season of bitter Mondays, when your world seems amiss and wrong…frostbite not only stings at exposed skin, but attacks underlying tissues too? Sometimes your best choice is to walk into the whipping wind…and rise in the courage of praise to melt the ice threatening to freeze the soul.
That’s right, you praise God. Praise Him, not to be happy about it, but praise God to become joy-filled in it. A life of praise is a celebration of God’s sovereignty. Praise cements deep-rooted trust to know God’s got it, He’s got you, and He will, in time, upright the bleak arctic wind and breathe out the bright summer sun into your soul again.
When the world gets worked up, stops you cold and freezes you in your tracks…worship like the psalmist David. Dwell in Psalm 34, as he wrote, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.” David didn’t write this Psalm when he had reason to celebrate, he wrote it in a cave against the backdrop of 1 Samuel 21. Not only had he run to save his life when jealousy ignited between David and Saul while serving in King Saul’s court, but he ran straight from one enemy into another’s hand. Escaping that too, David penned these words hiding in the cave of Adullam, abandoned, alone, and confused by people he had trusted. Yet he began from a heart of worship,
“I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.”
Through it all, he lived like He believed.
David’s life was one of triumph, defeat, outrageous joy, fear, depression, loneliness and danger. He sinned, was forgiven, and he worshiped. He ‘sought the Lord and He answered David, God delivered him from all his fears.’ He allowed himself to ‘dance with all his might’…total abandonment, no self-consciousness, holding nothing back. Alive, exposed and accepting all God allowed, David ‘extolled’ the Lord at all times—he bent his heart and his knee to trust his God and live like he believed. God’s grace saw him through.
“Those who look to him are radiant…” Psalm 34.5
Stay courageous and watch how God fills your praise.