Reaching Up and Out in Praise

 I don't know of any healthy relationship where there is not praise and adoration from each member toward the other party. Everyone wants to feel loved and admired. It's in our nature. It is nurturing in fact. We cannot live without love and contact with one another. 

This COVID season has put up so many walls, via face masks and social distancing; it has successfully alienated individuals who most needed the love; those who were sick, elderly or those who were bedridden in the time of quarantine. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Yes I am. We are here to help make life more bearable for those by us. Does that mean we do everything for them or give them handouts to the point that they are not working for themselves? Not if they are able. 

I heard a sermon about worship. The only way we can make it through this life is to worship the one who made us.  And that means out loud!. You say, 'well I am not that type person.' Do you not audibly speak to your wife or children in affectionate tones and language? Do you not get excited and praise them for their accomplishments or thank them fervently for a deed they did for you? Why is it any different for God.?HE created you to be fervent worshipers!You'll shout and scream and jump and down at a ball game or in your living room when your team scores. But God doesn't deserve that, who created such beauty, worked so many miracles, kept you so that you are still alive? No one is so bad off that they can't praise and worship. Not unless they are dead! 

My pastor added a good point. Maybe we are selfish to deny him praise and adoration. Maybe we are so self-sufficient that we think we need no one. We made it on our own; We got this far on our own strength. 

We need each other. We need God. I don't know of any power greater than the spoken word. It can create and destroy. Why not use some of that power to lift someone else to their feet with encouraging words?Praise the God who kept you. His power shows up when you praise him. Then praise someone else. 

Why is it you are considered selfish? Because if you can't acknowledge your need for others in your life, you can't see that they need you. You can't give love if you don't have it; if you're selfish, you don't love! God is not in you. His life giving breath is in you, but his nature is not evident in you at all. 

That's a scary and sad place to be. Are you there? Are you alienated by your choice? Are you a self-made man or woman? Have you withheld praise where it was timely and needed? Where are you in the praise category 1 -lowest and 10-highest? Rate yourself!