6. The Master of Praise
"I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands" (Psalm 63:4).
Once we come to understand the vital role of praise in our prayer lives, perhaps the first question that comes to mind is "How do I do that – how can I better express praise?" While we do not ever need to self-consciously worry about whether the praises we offer are "good enough," we would all agree that it would be great to have a "master coach" who could help us see how to more effectively show our feelings.
The good news is that we do have such a personal praise coach! The Bible's master of praise was undoubtedly King David, whose prayers in the Book of Psalms contain some of the most profound words of praise recorded in the Bible. In fact, songs of praise are the most numerous of all the types of David's prayers and actually form the core of the Book of Psalms – where they outnumber all other types of psalms combined.
We can use these psalms of praise written by David to enhance our own worship, not just by praying the same words – though some psalms are perfectly appropriate for our own use – but also by learning from David how he used his words of praise and the attitude of worship that he so clearly displayed. Patterns of Praise Probably the first thing we notice about David's worship, as we read the Psalms, is the continued praise he offers for the wonder and beauty of God's creation. He does this not just in abstract terms, but by noticing specific things in nature and stressing how their design, function, and very existence inspired him to offer words of praise (Psalm 19:1, 148:3, 7-10, etc.). These things may seem like obvious objects of praise, and they are, but if we read his psalms carefully we can learn from David's eye for detail and the sense of awe he exhibits in relating the created to the Creator.
In addition, David frequently praises God for his perfect nature and character – his goodness (Psalm 135:3), loving kindness (Psalm 117), justice (Psalm 99:3-4), mercy (Psalm 25:6, 7), and many other characteristics, as well as for his salvation (Psalm 27:1).
The Psalms also offer praise for many things that are far less obvious. Take, for example, the words in most translations of Psalm 76:10 which tell us that even human anger against God praises him, perhaps because it acknowledges God's existence and power whether intentionally or not! You may have to think about this verse for a minute to see how that applies. But as we meditate on David's psalms, we come to see the almost infinite number of ways in which we may be inspired to praise.
Another thing we learn from David is that he often tied his praise to actual events that occurred in his own life and the lives of others. Psalm 63, "A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah," is an excellent example of this. The first verse of the composition sets it in that desert environment, and David uses the situation poetically to reflect his relationship with God.
You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water (vs. 1). This is one of the major reasons the praises we read in the Psalms seem so fresh and real – they are based on real events and living responses to actual circumstances. David's praises are never generic, and there is a lesson in that for us.
As this same psalm progresses, we see another pattern David uses – he praises God for specific things using a formula he employs in many of his compositions: "Because you do X, I will praise you in way Y." In other words, David ties what God has done to what he now does in response to God. Notice these examples:
Because your love is better than life … I will praise you as long as I live (vss. 3-4a). Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings (vs. 7). I cling to you; [because] your right hand upholds me (vs. 8; note the reversed order, but the identical concept). If we look for them, we will find these methods of expression frequently in David's compositions, but they are only some of the many patterns of praise we can find in the Book of Psalms. David offers praise for things God has done in the past or present, and for things God will do in the future; he offers praise for things God has done for him, and for others; for things asked for, and for things unasked for yet given by God. There are, in fact, dozens of ways we can find David offering thanks and praise and dozens of different responses David offers in return for God's graciousness and help. Catalogs of Praise Many of David's psalms show how he structured his prayers of praise based on a number of specific points. It is as if David were making or keeping lists of things to praise! Look, for example, at Psalm 103. In that psalm David begins his prayer by saying: "Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name" (vs. 1), and then he continues by listing seven specific reasons for praise:
Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits— who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's (Psalm 103:2-5). The fact that seven things for which we can offer praise are mentioned in these verses may be significant in that the number seven was symbolic of completion or totality in Hebrew culture (seven days of the week, seven annual festivals, etc.). So the seven reasons for praise may well be intended to represent the idea of "complete" praise, but David gives other, different, lists of praise in his psalms as well.
Many believers find it helpful to keep a notebook to record things to give thanks for in prayer. We can expand this idea to also list items for which we can give praise. Keeping notes like this may seem artificial at first, but it is easy to think of things during the course of the day only to forget them by the time we do approach God in prayer.
This is especially true when we are experiencing stresses in our lives because problems can cloud our vision and keep us from praising God effectively. But David continued to give praise in all circumstances (Psalm 25, etc.), and it is in some of the psalms composed in the most difficult times that we see David enumerating things for which he wanted to offer praise.
Keep that fact in mind. Often our problems seem lighter when we turn to God with praise for everything God is as well as what he does. There is nothing like a list of things for which we can offer praise in difficult times to help us remember – as David doubtless did – that God is there and he has everything in his control. David: The "Praise Professional" David wrote "I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth" (Psalm 34:1 NKJV), and it is clear that for him praise was a way of life. No other biblical figure gives us as much information on both public (Psalm 95:1-7) and private (Psalm 63:6-8) praise. So, as the Bible's true "master of praise," there is much we can learn from him. Reading through his psalms with an eye to how he worshipped God, we cannot fail to see ways in which our own praise may be expanded and enriched.
The Book of Psalms also contains prayers of praise by other individuals, as well as those by David, and many of the psalms that focus on worship give us a window into how praise was conducted in biblical times and can still be applied today. For example, Psalm 150 (which is anonymous and may have been written by David or someone else) uses the term "praise" thirteen times in its six verses – addressing not only the where (vs. 1) and why (vs. 2) of praise, but also the how (vss. 3-6)!
So if you have not read through the Psalms recently, consider that book for your next personal study project. No other book of the Bible will better help you to see richly effective praise and inspire you to aim for it yourself.
PART THREE:
PETITION