The Sacrifice of Praise

A friend of mine asked me this question once: Why is it so easy for you to praise God? Why is it that when you sing, you sing joyfully? Why do you trust God that much?


What does praising God mean? Praise means giving thanks. It comes from our lips. Praise means saying good things to someone, like when we say good job to a baby learning to walk. We praise a child when he or she comes home from school and proudly shows us exam papers that got full marks. Praise is appreciation of someone having done something well.

It is easy to praise God when everything in life is going smoothly. We thank Him when He has blessed us- we received an unexpected salary increase, the result of a dreaded medical exam came back negative, thank God, our children are all doing good in school, things in our everyday life that do not cause us concern or worry. In short, life is good, and it is easy to give thanks to the Lord. We can sing, we can worship, we can talk about how good He is because we can see it. That kind of praise, although worthwhile, does not cost us anything. It is not a sacrifice.

Then there are those times when God did not come through the way we expected Him to. How do we praise God when everything seems so dark in our lives? When He seems so distant, and He doesn't seem to care what is happening in our lives? How is it possible to sing joyfully when you have received a report from the doctor that you have cancer? How can you lift up your hands in prayer when you have just broken up with someone? How can you thank God when you just heard that your teenage daughter got pregnant? God seems very far away, and praise is the last thing to bubble up from our hearts. We can't see His goodness, and circumstances around us scream that He seems to have forgotten us.

To praise God in those times require personal sacrifice. It takes an act of pure will to lay your all at the altar before a God we don't understand. When we choose to offer a 'sacrifice of praise', we choose to believe that, even though life is not going the way we think it should, we know that God is still good and can be trusted. Nahum 1:7 says, 'The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him.' When we choose to praise God in spite of the storms in life, He is honored, and our faith in Him grows deeper.

Hebrews 13:15 says, 'Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.' Our praise of God should not be based on our opinion about His performance. Praise cannot be treated as a 'reward' we give God for His blessings to us. Real praise is continues regardless of our circumstances. It should come out naturally from a grateful heart, in good and in bad.

The sacrifice of praise comes from a humble heart that has been purified by fire, having come out of the dark times through His great love and mercy. It rises from a spirit that has chosen to honor God in spite of the pain that life brings. I leave you with this portion of Scripture from the book of Habakkuk then, from verses 17-19, and I pray that when difficult times hit us, this will also be our declaration of faith. It goes like this:

'Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines,
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
The the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls-

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord
I will joy in the God of my salvation
The Lord God is my strength;
He will make my feet like deer's feet,
And he will make me walk on my high hills.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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