Praise or not to Praise that is the Question

- Praise is the culmination of our enjoyment of anything.
- C. S. Lewis

Why call praise music - praise music? Why not thank you music or I love you Jesus music.

The widely trusted Wikipedia says:

In Christianity, the word takes on a new meaning, and is understood as a command to either describe God or give a testimony of what God has done.In religion, praise is an impassioned exaltation of God (ie. a Supreme Being, or Creation), typically as an expression of gratitude for one's life or being. In other cases,praise may be tied to more situational aspects such as health and prosperity.In its common usage praise is the act of making positive statements about a person, object or idea, either in public or privately

Praise is just one element of worship and praise is something we have done since birth. Christian or not we praise. When we were youngwe looked up to a certain individual, in most cases our parents or siblings. We gave these individuals praise for simple things because at the time we didn't know better. For example: I used to praise my brother for being a good baseball player but now that I'm older I know my brother stinks at baseball.

God (Yahweh) is praised everyday through what we see, taste, and hear. When we look at the mountains in East Tennessee and we say, Wow! That is praise.The book of Psalms is a rich resource where most of our Worship leaders and hymn writers are inspired to write about praising God.

David Crowders' book, Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi, gives us some questions to be thinking about.

" Remember how effortlessly we sang the praises of things we enjoyed? It was so easy and fluid and natural. What if this kind of praise freely leaked from us in delightful response to God? What if life were like that all the time? What if we were so moved by who God is, what He's down, what He will do, that praise, adoration, worship, whatever,continuoustly careened in our heads and pounded in our souls? What if praise were on the tip of our tongues likewe were a loaded weapon in the hands of a trigger-happy meth addict and every moment might just set us off? Thisis what we will do for eternity. What makes us think out time on earth should be any different?What keeps it from being so?"

This is what praise may look like: