“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!“   ~Psalm 150:6

Why do we praise God? Does He really care if we say thank you when He’s helped us or done something we’ve prayed for? Or are we to be on our knees praising His name over and over, like the Muslims do to Allah? Is this what God wants from us? What does the Bible have to say about this most important topic?

“And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.”   ~Matthew 6:7

First and foremost, God wants a relationship with us. He wants us to come to Him with everything. He wants us to talk with Him about every aspect of our lives, from sharing our happiness to leaning on Him in our sorrow, from asking for help to praising Him for answered prayers. He wants it all!

​When things are going great, it’s really easy to just go our merry way and enjoy the good times. We don’t think about thanking God for the pleasant times. In fact, we’re usually so busy enjoying ourselves that we aren’t thinking about anything much besides our current joyful situation.

​However, if we truly had a deep, meaningful relationship with Jesus, we would run to share our joy with Him—we’d be overwhelmed with gratitude for our fortunate situation, whatever it might be.

​Then there are the times in life when our feet get kicked right out from under us—those times when everything seems to be going wrong. These are the hardest times to go to God because we so often get so stuck in our emotional pain that we can’t even think straight.

​These are the times Jesus wants to hear from us the most. If we can’t remember to share the good times and thank Him, how will we ever be able to reach out in our times of need?

What happens when we praise God in difficult times?

Everything changes when we praise Him in these hard times. The darkness in our souls seems to dissipate. And because praise equals peace, once we are in a peaceful state, we can start to see the light at the end of the trouble tunnel. Once we feel God’s peace in our hearts, we can then open up to all the good that He has in store for us. Praise is how we open our hearts to allow Him to rescue us.

Think about it this way: if you feel like you’re overwhelmed and drowning with problems, that’s because your focus is on the problems. It’s not your fault. Many times it’s a well-orchestrated distraction that the devil has devised to keep our thoughts off God. He knows how to get our attention—because if we’re drowning emotionally, we certainly aren’t thinking about praising God. But as soon as we stop focusing on our problems and start thanking God for the good in our lives, Satan’s spell is immediately broken.

​God can break any of Satan’s spells. He is just waiting for you to run to Him and ask for His help. Only through our inviting Him into a situation is He then free to handle it. We must use our God-given free will to ask for His help because otherwise, He would be interfering with our freedom of choice. He doesn’t want to watch us suffer but He will never interfere with our right to do it alone—even when we don’t have any chance of succeeding—He will still allow us to have the free will to choose.

​When we praise God we are thanking Him for the good which means we are looking at the good rather than the bad, and in so doing we will begin to see even more good. Praise and worship drive out the spirit of doubt and fear—it dilutes our problems and dissipates our worries. As soon as we praise God for the good, we break this spell of unbelief and worry, and are then filled with faith and peace. By praising God with our words we can experience God’s miraculous peace.

So . . . why do we praise God?

"Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations."   ~Psalm 100:1-5

The result of praise and gratitude is peace! Praise equals peace, it’s a trade we make with God. Peace is simply the result of praising Him. There is tremendous power in the act of praising God. A grateful heart protects us from discouragement, and the fact that praise produces peace, God's pure, perfect peace, should be motive enough!

If we only go to God when we have a need; only pray when something is going wrong but never praise Him or thank Him for everything else that’s going right, is that really loving God?  What if we only talked to our spouse when we wanted something from them? Isn’t that using them, rather than loving them? If you truly love someone wouldn’t you want to share everything with them, both the bad and the good stuff, saying thank you for everything they do for us as well as griping when they fall short of our expectations?

"But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”   ~~1 Peter 2:9

The above verse says God’s people should “proclaim the praises of Him…” Our worries and desires are important to God, but so are our praises! He wants us to come to Him with an attitude of gratitude, not just an attitude of self-centeredness.

“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.”   ~Hebrews 13:15​

God tells us to bring a sacrifice of praise but what exactly does this mean? God desires that we have a heart for Him—a mind open to His holy word and His righteous plan. If we mope around all the time filled with fear and anger, we are neither trusting in Him nor His wonderful plan for our lives.

You may ask yourself, what really is the point of praise? But when we begin to praise God, our focus shifts off of our problems and onto Him—we suddenly begin to recall all of the wonderful things He has already done for us.

“Remember His marvelous works which He has done, His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth.”   ~Psalm 105:5

That verse clearly tells us to remember His marvelous works which He has done for us! Praising God is one of the principal themes found throughout the entire Bible. Here are just a few praise God scriptures. We are told to praise God . . . joyfully (Psalm 100:1), all throughout the day (Psalm 113:3), and in the presence of others (Psalm 108:3; Psalm 111:1). There’s no doubt about it, the Lord truly created us to praise Him! He loves above all else, to share our joy with us!

We need to understand that the benefit of praising God is also for us, as well. We are the ultimate recipient of the power-filled effect of praise. Not only does the act of praise redirect our minds to the good in our lives—but it also seems to somehow mysteriously produce more of the same.

​Think of it this way, if all we do is gripe and complain all the time about all the problems we have— embellish every little detail of every single issue by talking about it to everyone, somehow we wind up with more problems and feel even more depressed, which leads only to more problems. A very vicious cycle for sure.

However, by praising God for the good in our lives, we seem to generate an attitude of gratitude, and in so doing, we see even more good stuff happening all around us.

​Even when it seems impossible to come up with one thing just push one little praise out! Sit in your puddle of tears and muster up enough strength to thank God for the fact that you’re still alive! As soon as we reach out to Him, He is there—there to help us up—to help us finish the race!

I’m not by any means saying this is an easy feat. Believe me, I’ve been to the very end of my emotional rope. I’ve been beaten by life. I’ve been broken. But I’ve learned that I have only two choices, I can wallow in the pain, or I can reach out to ​God and thank Him for always being there to get me through. He can then somehow put me back together again and help me back into the game of life. Peace is not the absence of trouble; it’s the presence of Jesus!

What if I’m just too broken?

I understand the way pain, both physical and emotional, can paralyze a person. I recently lost my brother and was in more pain than I could remember since my father passed. I spent a few weeks grieving his loss and then decided to turn the whole mess over to God. I gave my pain and sadness up to Him, again! And He was just as merciful this time as He was when my dad died. He somehow took all the pain out of my heart and filled me with peace.

Why live with grief and worries, pain and suffering, when Jesus is so willing to take it. Why be in misery when we serve a God that died to take our grief and sorrow away and fill us with joy and peace? Time doesn’t heal all wounds, God does.

“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”   ~Isaiah 53:4-5

Q: Why is praise so powerful?

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