The Bible Overflows With Praise to the Almighty The word praise occurs in more than 360 verses in the Bible. Most of these refer to praising God. They tell of people who praise God and their need to do so. Consider the short, six-verse Psalm 150. It’s filled with praise. The word occurs thirteen times. […]
Expressions of Grief Abound in the Psalms but We’ve Forgotten How to Lament In the churches I have attended throughout my life and visited in the past few years (nearly one hundred) I don’t remember singing songs of lament. We laud God the Father, we express love to Jesus and give thanks for his gift […]
There’s a Mandarin service followed by one in English;. We attend both. The worship team leads us. The words to the song are displayed in Mandarin and have the English translation underneath. They sing and I listen to voices of a different tongue. God’s presence engulfs me. When others raise their hands, I wonder if […]
Sometimes words and phrases evoke emotions in people beyond what they mean. A friend recently blogged about how the word “worship” has a negative meaning for her. Although understanding what she meant—and empathizing a bit—I didn’t think too much more about her post until a while later when I recalled my own issues with the […]
Silence Is Golden We live in a world where it’s hard to sit still and even more challenging to be silent. We are conditioned to be moving, active and physically engaged. And as we do so, we expect to be surrounded with sound, to be constantly exposed to an auditory stimulus. To be still can […]