Season 4 - Episode 21

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A well-known contemporary church song called Desert Song has an important refrain declaring, “I will bring praise! I will bring praise!” I’ve been thinking about the idea of praise since reading a chapter about praise psalms in a book called Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament by Dr. Ellen Davis. Dr. Davis is a professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School and Angie and I had the privilege of hearing her speak back in October. I’m going to share with you some of what she points out about praise psalms in this Covenant Weekly for January 28, 2025.

Before we talk about praise psalms, listen while I read one. This is Psalm 34.

A psalm of David, regarding the time he pretended to be insane in front of Abimelech, who sent him away.

1 I will praise the Lord at all times.
    I will constantly speak his praises.
2 I will boast only in the Lord;
    let all who are helpless take heart.
3 Come, let us tell of the Lord’s greatness;
    let us exalt his name together.

4 I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me.
    He freed me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;
    no shadow of shame will darken their faces.
6 In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened;
    he saved me from all my troubles.
7 For the angel of the Lord is a guard;
    he surrounds and defends all who fear him.

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good.
    Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!
9 Fear the Lord, you his godly people,
    for those who fear him will have all they need.
10 Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry,
    but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing.

11 Come, my children, and listen to me,
    and I will teach you to fear the Lord.
12 Does anyone want to live a life
    that is long and prosperous?
13 Then keep your tongue from speaking evil
    and your lips from telling lies!
14 Turn away from evil and do good.
    Search for peace, and work to maintain it.

15 The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right;
    his ears are open to their cries for help.
16 But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil;
    he will erase their memory from the earth.
17 The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help.
    He rescues them from all their troubles.
18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
    he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

19 The righteous person faces many troubles,
    but the Lord comes to the rescue each time.
20 For the Lord protects the bones of the righteous;
    not one of them is broken!

21 Calamity will surely destroy the wicked,
    and those who hate the righteous will be punished.
22 But the Lord will redeem those who serve him.
    No one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.

With this psalm, I’d love to share a couple of observations Dr. Davis makes about praise psalms that I found helpful.

First, she points out, “Psalms of praise…are sung in full awareness of the unrelenting difficulty of human life.” (pg. 32) This is, for some of us, a profound observation. Often in church, we shape our praises as a kind of rejection of struggle and loss. At funerals, we try to cheer each other up by talking about someone, “Being in a better place.” When someone is struggling, it is not uncommon for people to almost dismissively tell them, “God has everything under control!” The way we talk can create a culture that almost washes over troubles, perhaps because we’re concerned about being overwhelmed by them.

But biblical praise psalms don’t move to either extreme. They don’t deny the hardships, but neither does the writer (and, in turn, the engaged reader) get carried away by them.

Psalm 34 acknowledges those who are helpless (2), desperation and trouble (6), the need for refuge (8), the reality of evil (14), cries for help (15), more evildoers (16), more troubles (17, 19), broken hearts and crushed spirits (18).

And amid acknowledging reality, there is praise because God is faithful and true. God is present and caring. God is rescuer and redeemer.

This brings us to another point Dr. Davis makes. She observes, “Through the language of faithful worship, we come to see the world as it really is: the work of God’s hand, the object of God’s endlessly patient love. What is more, through praise we come to a new perception of our own situation. We do not have to strive continually to secure a place for ourselves. That place has been provided [by God].” (pg. 38)

A true praise psalm doesn’t deny the hard. It observes that amid the hard God is faithful and we are not abandoned. And in that, we get to a third point that Dr. Davis makes. She says, “Praise is more than something we do for God. The truth is that praise does more for us than it does for God. (It is time for Christians to get over the adolescent idea that the main reason we go to church is so God won’t be disappointed.) Praise looks good on the straightforward, on those who aspire to look at the world realistically, unsentimentally–that is, those who aspire not to view the world through the distorting lens of their own fantastic desires. In other words, praise suits those who want to see the world as it really is.” (pg. 34)

I love this understanding of praise as shaped by the praise psalms of scripture. In true praise, there is no naivety. There is no ignorance. There is reality - both in what we see and observe in the world and in God’s consistent faithful love (hesed) that stays with us through it all.

There are many times that I struggle to sing happy, clappy songs that seem ignorant of the struggles of life. But these psalms of praise - they are things I can enter into. In them I am – we are invited to acknowledge our immediate reality and be reminded that there is a deeper truth in the faithful love of God that transcends the hard stuff. And that love of God will never let us go.