Psalm 148

Going through the psalms, we have discovered and defined a few words that are oft repeated and used, today we land on another common word used toward God: praise.  We find ourselves in the final 5 psalms of the bible, known as the “praise psalms,” but when it is written in a psalm like this, it causes me to pause and wonder: what does it really mean anyway?  Maybe we can think of the word’s use in a context, like “praise God!” but what does it mean to praise God?  Worship means “worthy of praise,” which we covered in an earlier psalm…but what is God worthy of us doing, really?

Praise means to boast in.  When we praise a child for doing well, we are boasting about them.  When we seek praise for ourselves, we are boasting.  When we praise God, we are boasting in His greatness!  I am drawn to Ephesians 2, where Paul lays out the grounds for praising God as a result of our salvation:

⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, ⁵ and we being dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ (by grace you are saved), ⁶ and raised us together and seated us together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that he might show in the coming ages the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹ it is not from works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are his creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we may walk in them.

This passage now has new meaning for me, as I realize that any “good works” I do in a Kingdom sense, was already preordained for me to do through Christ, so that I don’t even deserve credit for it!  Jesus invented the good work for me to do, made it good, then created and saved me to do it!  This way, I can’t boast in it myself, because if it weren’t for Him, it would never have been done through me.  Think about the praiseworthy things you have done yourself.  If it wasn’t for God, you would never have done it!

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul goes more in depth about this paradigm when he gives his famous liturgy on God’s strength through human weakness.  I won’t copy the whole passage here, because it is a bit lengthy, but he ends with this:

⁹ And he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, because the power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore rather I will boast most gladly in my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may reside in me. ¹⁰ Therefore I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in calamities, in persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. 

This is a very revealing concept!  Do we praise God because of our weaknesses?  As a trained Marine with combat experience, boasting in weakness was never a principle we learned.  We were taught to protect our weaknesses, compensate for them, and capitalize on our strengths.  Our performance-based society trains us in the same way.  Whether we are conscious about it or not, we have been conditioned to put forth our best look, share our life’s highlight reels, and hide our inadequacies.  Paul flips the script and says, “I will highlight my weaknesses and failures, as it will best glorify God.”  Does anyone else cringe when considering that?  If we focus on our own strengths and victories, we are boasting in ourselves.  Therefore, we are called to humility and not just praise God for the things we do well, but also the things we do not-so-well.  Our weaknesses showcase God’s strength all the more because we certainly cannot receive praise or boast about ourselves when we are weak!