Learning to Praise God
Last month I shared in my blog that I was working on learning to praise God better. Someone asked me why I chose that topic. To be honest it came from conversations with friends from different churches, people in my own church, and even the youth in my seminary class. The topic of how different Christian churches praise God has come up many times, and the LDS church always seems to come up short in the eyes of other Christians.
Here is a sample of some of the things people have said to me:
Why do all the hymns sound like funeral music?
Why are you guys so quiet in church?
Everyone seems to be so serious, like they aren't enjoying themselves.
It is eerily quiet, especially after a musical number, and there is no clapping or any sign that the congregation enjoyed it. How do people know?
It felt awkward.
Your speakers seem to lack enthusiasm for the gospel. (Ouch!)
People just ignored me, not one person talked to me! (This one really hurts!)
So I started to think that maybe I was missing out on something better. Am I lacking in the praise department? Is my church dropping the ball in the praise department?
I don't think anything I do will result in big changes being made in my church, but it might make some changes in me. It might even strengthen my relationship with God and make me a better Christian. I'm up for that!
I had to come up with a plan. I chose to pick one topic of praise each month and work on it. Last month I choose praising God through my trials. My theme was: How would I answer if the Lord asked me, "Am I enough?" When the trials were piling on would I still praise Him?
I asked the Lord to bless me with opportunities to praise Him. I really should have thought that through some more. The thought, "Be careful what you ask for' has come to my mind many times during the past month. January was a tough month. My family suffered through the flu, we had hundreds of dollars in car repairs, there were family challenges, time challenges, and just this last week we were hit with a need for a new washing machine (hundreds of dollars more) and some medical issues.
I blame myself for this. You would think that I would learn to stop and think before I ask God to bless me with opportunities like this!
On the flip side, it has been a month of keeping eternal perspective at the forefront, of not sweating the small stuff, of thanking the Lord for listening to my prayers, and learning to praise God even when I felt like sitting in the middle of the room and crying. But maybe that is the point I needed to get to before I was ready to say, Yes Lord you are enough!
So I would like to take a moment to show a little love to my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ, for their awesomeness. I know that they love me, that they know me, that they hear me, and are a part of my daily life. I know that they have been with me through every step, of every trial, that I've had this month. I know that what might have seemed like a month of endless torment, was actually a month of teaching and learning and I love them for that!!! I learned a lot about myself and my limitations. I learned the difficulty of letting go of worldly things and seeing the value in my relationship with God. It is not always easy to put the Lord first, when you feel like your world is crumbling around you. It is nice to be able to say "That's right I survived January!"
That just leaves me with the task of picking a new topic of praise to work on for the month of February. I'll be honest, I was a little afraid to pick one for fear of putting myself in another pattern of testing and learning. But after some thought, I decided to go with the theme of showing praise to God through loving others, it being the month of Valentine's Day, it seemed appropriate.
I think I'll start with some scripture study to find out the expectations before I pray this time! Wish me luck!
