If people don’t praise God, scripture says, the rocks will cry out. I’d like to hear that. I wonder what praise would sound like, crackling from sharp granite edges.
But rocks may never need to praise their Maker, because in kitchens and cathedrals, in song and dance, on purpose and by chance, God’s people still praise him, even in tough times. Like now.
With mouth organs and pipe organs, we praise God, we who love him. Through the ages, with harp and timbrel and ten-stringed lyre. With cymbals and drums and horns. With pot lids and spoons. Fiddles and zithers. On pianos and trumpets, guitars and trombones. We praise God, we who know him. We do.
We praise him in nature, on hikes and walks; at home, in bathtubs and showers. We praise him at work and often at play. We praise him at night and all through the day. And God dwells in that praise. It’s true.
His voice is heard in the song of birds, the rustle of branches, the roar of oceans. And whether the praise takes the form of a child’s lisped “Jesus loves me, this I know,” a tenor’s oratorio, or a senior’s faintly remembered gospel hymn, God dwells there too. He does.
Songs often bust out of me, not always at the best place or time. That happened in our staff kitchen at work recently. On my way back to my desk at the other end of the office, I noticed my colleague, whose office sits closest to the staff kitchen, had shut her usually open office door. I stuck my head in. “Next time I sing in the kitchen,” I said, “I’ll shut your door first myself!” She laughed.
I know other songs, of course, and sing those too. But most days hymns and praise songs drift out without thought. It’s harder to keep them in than let them out. My parents did the same. A tradition of praise runs like a vibrant thread through our family. Our grandbeans and their parents often lead worship for various congregations.
As I write, the world wages an invisible war. We’ve hunkered down in our homes, COVID-19 riding our backs. The disease has stolen so much, filled too many hearts with sorrow and fear of tomorrow. But cowering in fear has never been part of God’s victory plan. Worship music has.
The Old Testament records an account of a unique battle between the Israelites and their enemies. What was unique? God ordered worship singers and musicians to march out first, and victory followed.
We can’t meet in churches while the pandemic rages. But Christians have always found ways to gather. We have online church. Parking lot meetings, in cars, pleading with God to heal our world. We can do all that.
And we can flood our homes with music and praise. We can leak the song into our neighbourhoods. For when we praise the One who inhabits praise, who alone deserves our woship, we’re already running the victory lap.
