Is Non-stop Praise Possible

“Praise ye the LORD. Praise, O ye servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD. Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and for evermore. From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD’S name is to be praised.” (Ps 113:1-3 AV)

 

Amen and Amen!  Non-stop praise, how wonderful that would be.  One considers how differently our lives would be if we could do this.  I wonder how better our lives would be if we could learn this.  Can you imagine if we praised God for every event of life?  If we could see our trials from God’s perspective, I wonder how we would endure.  If we could see the reasons for our trials and get to the end much quicker, one wonders how much praise would be involved.  If we did this enough, perhaps we would praise the LORD no matter the circumstances because experience has taught us God is always good.  We would know that all things work together for good and wouldn’t need the answer before the end of the trial.  We would take God at His character and assume that whatever He has planned, no matter the severity, will ultimately work for our benefit.  Getting to the place of non-stop praise takes faith and patience.  To praise the LORD non-stop requires we trust and love Him despite our troubles.  Getting to non-stop praise should be the goal of every believer.

Have you ever met an eternal optimist?  It wouldn’t matter what his or her life is like, they always see a positive side to it all.  It wouldn’t matter what they were facing, they could see God’s goodness in it all.  No matter the challenge that lies ahead, they can see God’s hand in it and they refuse to ‘curse God and die’.  Job was not one of these persons.  Although he has cause to complain, Job could have responded a bit differently.  This was the reason for the trouble.  He had taken for granted that if he feared God and eschewed evil, God would protect him from adverse conditions.  The fault with that reasoning is that we may learn obedience and submission that way, but without trials, we would never learn faith.  This was the valuable lesson Job learned.  God did not allow the Devil to curse Job without a greater purpose in mind.  The LORD is not a tyrant who desires to make our lives unnecessarily challenging if not downright miserable.  He is a benevolent God.  He is a kind God.  He loves us with everlasting love.  He is a God with purpose.  He paints with broad strokes.  His ways are not our ways.  His goals are often different and better than our own.  An eternal optimist will see life as God sees it.  He or she will not define life according to what we see, but rather, to what he or she does not see.  An eternal optimist refuses to buckle to the enemy and gives God the benefit of the doubt.  An eternal optimist does not limit himself to his own existence.  Rather, he sees life from a greater perspective.

To praise the LORD 24/7 no matter what is a sign we have reached spiritual maturity.  To have the ability to praise the LORD from one point in our lives to the end of it has brought us to the place where we truly love God no matter what.  If we cannot find cause for praise, we simply do not know Him as we should.  If we complain and murmur, or wilt under the pressure of life, this means we have some growing to do.  If we buckle to the enemy or the flesh, we have not learned as yet to trust God in all things.  This is the whole point of the psalm.  The command to praise the LORD in all things is not a light one.  The writer does not encourage us to praise God non-stop in all things without knowing it takes some doing to get there.  He knows many trials produce that praise.  It doesn’t come immediately.  It comes over time.  The point is to desire this as our reality of life and no matter how difficult life might get, the move in the direction of non-stop praise.