Beginning with the suicide of my daughter’s closest male friend, my own father dying, some drastic work challenges and changes, health problems in both my mother and my wife, not to leave out that special family, and with the more recent cancer diagnoses of our good man, and disappearance of a close friend’s new wife just after four months of marriage, it has to be said that this has been by far the worst fourteen months I’ve known.

Gone are the carefree days of childhood, the cheerful hours of courtship, the meandering minutes of profitable opportunity, now eclipsed by endless trouble. Scurrying deeper into the cave, happiness eludes me, which is the reason I have my little cry most mornings during prayer time because I believe like some lost best friend I will not see ‘joy’ again, until that marriage feast in heaven. But my quest for joy seems hardly appropriate if not becoming less and less important in light of so many around me who endure sufferings far worse, if I was indeed that brash, God forbid, in comparing troubles.

I’ve stressed, stretched, broke out, read books that helped and some that didn’t, lost my way, tossed the night away in analysis paralysis, and yes, the one thing I’ve always managed to shrewdly ignore like some uninvited door-knocker, I’ve finally let in – depression – if not just for a brief tea-less visit. Too right I should be punished for what I boast in, and like Hotel California, although I keep ‘checking-out’, I am unable to leave.

“You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.” – Henri Frederic Amiel

And so… how to make the best use of suffering.

It was during the most vulnerable time of the day, lying awake in the dead of night, I fell into praising my Lord, just so I could sleep. No petitions, no hostilities, just praise. As time dragged itself alongside it has become my habit. I praise Him, I sleep, I wake, and then write down the surprising residue the following morning. I sought to analyze praise itself from inside the furnace, to dissect it, to take a leaf out of my son’s leafless book and pull it apart as to the reason why praise contributes to a new confidence, a new peace and although I am seeing the faintest glimmer of joy once again burn its little bounce on the cardiograph, I am content that if it does not resurrect to full strength in this life, I shall enjoy it once more the other side of the long-drop.

What is praise, how does it work, and why does it work? How to “sleep in the storm”, as the ‘unspoken’ song goes. (Matthew 8:24)

Herewith, thirty pieces of silver.

1. Praise is thankfulness. Getting the obvious out the way, what surprised me most about praise in general, is why I’ve linked it to my trials? Why was I dissecting praise only now during these severe difficulties? Why was I not compelled during the good times, when I was happy, with very few cares? Am I using praise as a crutch? Is it a knee-jerk survival technique? Am I really just a God-praiser when things are going well? Am I harbouring some other sinister motives?

Perhaps not surprising that during these periods of trial I tended to focus on all the negatives, but interestingly not only the negatives pertaining to the trial, but a host of other dissensions that have crept in. It was as if all my dissatisfactions like some chronic infection suddenly came pouring out my pores as if they were wounds, as if God deliberately exhumed them to reveal my dormant discontentments. And although I’ve come to view suffering as the necessary reaper, to cut down the imposters and traitors on the battlefield in favour of exposing the resilient patriotic few, so I could reward them by stuffing into each of their arms a banner before the next wave of attack, and thus focusing on the real positives which remain, I make audible through grateful praise, almost as an act of defiance.

Thankfulness moves closer to sincerity when it is specific. When my son thanks me for the gift on his birthday, then I know why he’s thanking me, for the gift, through something I did for him. Praise is the same, an expression of gratitude for all the gifts God has lavished us, but what’s unique about praise is that when we name them one by one and then give the reason why we’re thankful for that particular gift, we can go deeper and become more thoughtful individuals, so that we not only NOT treat God as a waiter whom we tip after a nice meal, or a fire extinguisher we deploy to rescue us from harm, but so that we can live better, more empathetic and harmonious lives with our fellow man.

I praise you Lord for these troubles, difficulties and trials. I praise you for this furnace which burns away everything that doesn’t matter, even silver and gold, to produce in us what matters most – praise, (1 Peter 1:7).

2. Praise allows God to be God. This point really hit home when I told my atheist friend, after he downloaded his troubles on me, that I would pray for him on his behalf. He winced and told me that although he appreciated it, he felt uncomfortable coming to an all powerful God hat-in-hand, for a ‘handout’ as he put it. It struck me that our relationship with God is just that, a constant ‘needy’ relationship. God doesn’t mind at all, if anything it is the type of attitude He expects from us (Luke 6:20), whereas we tend to be the ones who ration ourselves before Him. The psalmist understood this as he frequently went to the Lord ‘poor and needy’, (Psalm 40:17, 109:22, 70:5).

Praise is a great reminder of this discrepancy, and allows us to confidently step into that needy relationship. Praise is therefore a form of surrender that says in its subtext that I’m allowing God to be Himself, to do what He does best, allowing Him to test and produce in us one of the many fruits, and in this instance, peace. Praise let’s God quieten our storms, and how much more in bringing a serenity to our severities amidst our current anxiety-riddled world, a symptom and sign to the absence of praise. In addition, allowing God to be God instills us with the right kind of humility. The humility He meant when He referred to children, that we could not enter the kingdom without that same heart, (Matthew 18:1-11).

I praise you Lord for being God. You are truly awesome for your power and magnitudes, but even more so for your concern and attention you lavish on even the smallest parts of your creation. I bless you Lord, that we can come to you poor and needy, for a ‘handout’, every minute of every hour of every day, (Psalm 8:4-8).

3. Praise makes God bigger than a finite mind can naturally grasp. Trials are either self-inflicted or divine tests. As such there were three questions that struck me during my meditations on praise. One, does God really go around fixing our mistakes? Two, did He really plan out our whole lives before He made us, replete with joys and jarrings is He fulfilling His divine purpose for us? The third question I asked is which of those two scenarios makes God bigger and more magnificent in our estimation? The answer is both. He indeed does repair what we cannot mend, but that He planned for this long before He made the world. Free will and predestination is what theologians call “concurrence”, both scenarios not detracting, but each complementing the other. It is hard to comprehend the immensity and intricacies of the canvas He works on but it is important to know that with God and us who love Him, there is no ‘plan B’, (Proverbs 16:33). It’s near impossible to rationalize and reconcile unless we engage in regular praise, which provides the way ‘in’ to understanding the ‘bigness of God’. The more we praise, the more His holiness astonishes us, and the more we see His greatness.

I praise you Lord, for though your greatness is unsearchable (Psalm 145:3), we have access to a Spirit that reveals that which cannot be experienced through our natural faculties. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). I praise you for that convicting Spirit, (John 16:7-11).

4. Praise calls out the liar in us. It was during my prayer times, which had descended into groanings in God’s general direction, that I suddenly took notice of my words. At one particular juncture I heard myself groan that if I were wiser I’d be able to cope better, as well as be wealthier so I can just get off the treadmill for a while to properly take care of those suffering around me… and there it was… a whole pack of lies dropped like a steamy pile of manure from some animal’s fundament. Where did that come from? How did I equate wisdom with the alleviation of a trial when God already drew the separation between wealth and wisdom in the life of Solomon? And how did I jump straight into a pit of imaginary cash as the solution? More importantly, how did I manage to take cognizance of my words? Why now? One word. Praise. It was praise that awoke me to the lies that simmer around our cores like microbes in heat.

I praise you Lord for exposing the lies within me, and I apologize for them. I bless you my Shepherd for placing me exactly where You want me at this point in time. That I am passing through life with everything I need, and more, (Psalm 23). There truly is nothing I lack.

5. Praise converts. For the longest time I’ve been fascinated by the Christian idea of conversion. How someone can change so radically from a death-row murderer to a forgiven lover of a Christ, and how another can remain joyous in the face of persecution? How we constantly move between happiness and sadness, depending on our circumstances, like they were two separate rooms we get sent to, depending on what’s done to us. It was only during praise that I realized there were no such thing as two rooms. It’s all one world. But it’s more than a self-reliant outlook we buy from a meditation wellness retreat, because while scripture awakens us to this notion that the same place of curse can be converted into a place of blessing (Hosea 2:15), it is praise itself that’s the elixir, the antibody, the medicine, the waterfall that gushes down into our dark dry valleys and converts them into Edens.

Praise be to you Lord, for making yourself known to us, for invading our world in the person we’re coming to know, your Son Jesus Christ, and we praise Him for invading our own bodies and souls. We praise you for everything you make, that is destined to last forever, and we bless you for the miracle, resurrection and conversion God you are, (John 11:25).

6. Praise reminds us of our hope in the future. The early American theologian Johnathan Edwards once wrote that we as Christians should be happier than most because of three things: One, that bad things will turn out for the good (Romans 8:28). Two, that good things, like the adoption into God’s family, justification in His sight and union with Him, can never be taken away (Romans 8:1), and three, good things, like the resurrection, life in the new heavens and new earth, are yet to come (Revelation 22). In other words, in our day-to-day dealings and especially during our trials we lose sight of something very important. We lose sight of ‘Eternity’. Praise reminds us that we do not wait for eternity but that we’ve already stepped into it (John 5:24), with that inconvenient little blip of a hurdle called ‘death’ somewhere on the timeline. Whether our and the Lord’s loved ones succumb to disease or suicide, we will see them again, and it is praise that stretches our mind across either side of that eternal divide. Trials may force us to focus on the deliverance, but it is praise that focusses us on the deliverer, the one who is called Saviour and an expert at resurrections.

I praise you Lord for giving us a hope (1 Peter 1:3-9), and a future (Jeremiah 29:11), and of course for the ability to praise you as a way of fixing our gaze on the living hope, (1 Peter 1:3), which renews us day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). Thank you so much.

7. Praise helps us enjoy the present. As much as trials and ordeals forces us into the moment, demanding from us that we reorder our priorities, it also has the tendency to show us what we are lacking, where we have failed, and indeed the usefulness of suffering is that we learn and change. But suffering can also put us in a spiral of agony over what we don’t have, whereas praise focuses on what it is we do have. And so, praise is taking stock of the present, which we so easily forget.

Throughout this year I praised the Lord for this beautiful family I am blessed with; a wife who is my best friend, a daughter who’s a hard-working sensitive soul, endeavouring to always pursue the right thing, and a son who’s attentive, loving and considerate. I praised God for the faith community and developing friendships we as a family enjoy. I praise Him for good enjoyable work, both for profit and non, and I praise Him for praise itself, as a thrilling form of appreciation.

I praise you Lord that we can enjoy and delight in you, and because you have given us the desires of our hearts, with so much more to come (Psalm 37:4). Deeply, thank You.

8. Praise bolsters us because of the past. As praise flowed from me these last months I have at times run out of things to praise the Lord for off the cuff. So I went looking and discovered that praise is fuelled by two different places in the past. The first is scripture. The past narratives of real men and women God has unconditionally loved and assisted in their resurrection journeys, which forged for them an indestructible hope, has forced me deeper into the text, and like a well I drew out their water, their experiences, their praise, and praised Him for it. The second was paying attention to my own journey, as I remembered the times God has intervened, assisted and delighted in me, and for the sake of our confidence in our present circumstances it is important to record and reflect, and to praise Him for those instances.

I praise you Lord for your unfailing love, which is no small thing as you’ve persistently demonstrated towards that special nation. I praise you for your past deeds and the kindnesses, the common grace you shower on all men and women of earth (Psalm 107:15). And I praise you for walking with me since my youth, for rescuing me from some ridiculous situations during my travels. You rock. Thank you.

9. Praise is living. Prior to this exercise in praise there was one particular day when I was so overwhelmed by what are now distant troubles, that it led my thoughts down roads I did not want to go, so I can say with reasonable certainty that trials would be far worse if it weren’t for praise to temper it. There are generally three responses to any difficulty. The first is to endure, to stoically grin and bear it. The second is to crumble and surrender to reckless abandon. Methodical, deliberate and thoughtful praise is the third response which falls neatly between the two, which neither relies on the stoic self, nor the epicurean rebel. Both extremes are ‘back-foot’ responses designed for survival, whilst front-foot praise ensures that we don’t just survive, but that we live, cultivating what has proved to be a captivating habit.

I praise you my Lord for being my shield, which ensures that I keep moving forward, I keep advancing (Psalm 28:7, 3:3) and not retreating (Hebrews 10:38-39). And I praise you for filling my feeble self with your juicy strength.

10. Praise is an exercise in faith. And what a defiant exercise in faith it is, but what do I mean and why is faith important? There are times I say things in praise that I do not as yet believe. For example, one of the lines I utter more than any other is; “God is good, always, every time.” To my core I believe that statement, most of the time, but I’ll be honest with you, although I say it, it is in the depths of despair I do not believe it. Which means I have to close my eyes, uncork my senses and trust that I am paying it forward as a way of appropriating what is not yet a reality to my faculties.

The Bible teaches that our words shape our realities (Mark 11:23), we are therefore compelled to trust our words more than ourselves. The first five days of the creation account shows God ‘speaking’ His creation into existence, while on the sixth day He gets down and dirty with the mud. It should tell us that our words are far more important than our deeds. So for us to remain standing (Ephesians 6:13) in every sense of the word, we should assert God’s good promises, so that our praise of Him in faith fills us with the truth. The modern world believes that truth exists inside themselves, which explains why truth is relativized and trampled on, but this process is incongruent with reality. For truth to be unifying it needs to be universal, and therefore truth should exists outside of ourselves, which means that truth can be acquired, manifested, made real, proved and appropriated by and through our words. And what is the truth in this instance? That we as the human race have dignity, and what higher dignity than being deeply loved and highly prized by an Almighty God?

I praise you Lord for the blessing of your Word (Mark 4:13), often referred to in scripture as ‘the seed’, that you plant, water and grow in us, so that we may employ and deploy its fruits to shape this world for the better. And I praise you Lord for our sufferings, which is a sign that we have overcome, and are indeed done with sin, (1 Peter 4:1).

11. Praise is efficient. There is a reason why the Lord in His wisdom placed praise right at the start of his model for prayer, for if praise is absent as an introduction, then our prayers descend into long, arduous, angst-ridden petitions. And yet, if praise is not thoughtful, it can also ascend towards insincerity, fake feasts of flattery. It has to be said that God is ‘big’, which means He doesn’t mind our whinging in the least, but praise Him first and our incoherent groanings minimize in favour of succinct depositions. Praise kills the babble and cuts to the chase. Praise takes mountains of moans and sifts it to manageable mounds, oceans of mutterings and distills it into placid lakes. Deliberate audible praise not only keeps our minds from wandering and engaged with God, but forces specificity in an idolatrous world designed to either numb us, or have us conform to rituals. When we praise we are forced to think, allowing us to petition more accurately, we say; “You are good, and here’s why”, and sometimes the ‘why’ must rely on a future state.

I praise you Lord for you alone are good. Always. Every time, (Mark 10:18, Psalm 34:8).

12. Praise is a bridge. During this year of testing my soul more and more gravitated every day towards the praise and worship of others. From Psalms to ‘John Newton’, to ‘Red Rock’, to ‘Unspoken’ to my favourite ‘the Rend Collective’ and a number of others in between, praise is both a rock and a bird. What do I mean? Well, while praise grounds us, keeps it ‘real’ as we profess and articulate God our rock and His Son Jesus as our realities, that we are loved and taking Him to task for the good futures He has called us to (Jeremiah 29:11), praise also eventually becomes lyrical, poetic, prosaic and do it long enough will turn words into song as so many singers can attest to while the rest of us bask in the emotional residue of their praise. It is during this process that praise becomes a bridge, which joins walking with flying (Isaiah 40:31), earth with heaven, the natural with the supernatural, the impossible with the possible and the ephemeral with eternity.

I praise you Lord for your magnificent Son Jesus Christ, our bridge, who did not come to show the gate but became the gate, who died on a cross so that we could cross, was hung on a tree so we might be free (John 14:6). We thank you Father, and love you all the more for it.

13. Praise exposes the underlying hostility towards God. It was some time amidst the turbulence, when God asked me to explain to Him, why I felt hostility towards Him. Inaudible, but direct came His question. After some meditation I answered Him honestly, that I could find no real reasons, no solid ground for my hostility. Truth is it was praise that assisted greatly in the analysis to His question and my answer. Even though the Bible concurs that man’s natural stance is enmity against God (Romans 8:7) I loathed seeing my default position exposed when praise slipped between my teeth, and apologized to Him. It seems that I pay lip service to God being good all the time, except when I’m in the heart of the storm, when I can no longer find any reason for a particular trial I find myself, like Job, fall on my default heart in getting angry. I then immediately hate myself because I am not only still relying on my intellect to rationalize suffering, but my praise then becomes fake. Job expressed hostility and we are told he did not sin. He wanted justice and the subtext we know is that he craved a mediator which we got in Christ. Certainly we have a hall-pass to roll the same way, but my hostility repulses me and I readily apologize the infrequent times it happens, and subsequently alter my praise, for God is Dad, Lover and a Friend. Always.

I praise you Lord for your great mercy (Titus 3:5), that I’ve come to rely and fall upon during the times I doubt your love for me, and especially during the times I doubt my own love for you. I praise you for the forgiveness you so willingly extend.

14. Praise breaks destructive cycles. The theory of reflexivity, which posits that when we perceive our world, we not only affect our world but our perceptions ‘bend back’ on us, causing us to make certain adjustments. Similar to a mirror we reflect our thoughts onto ourselves, which reflects back on us, after which we then make certain changes, plastic surgery or otherwise. The danger is that we can get trapped in a cycle of morbid reflecting, and making changes based on what is reflected back from the vicissitudes of an unstable and incoherent society around us, whereas praise allows us to look on the beauty of God and His magnificent family. We ‘outra-spect’, which breaks the introspective cycle, countering what can be harmful to us by looking at the true reality, at the One Who made us. We put our focus on what’s reliable, our North Star as the song goes (Rend Collective), putting our all at His feet for Him to control, eradicate or tame as we begin praising in faith. It could be argued that praise is just another cycle replacing the loop it broke, but the big difference is that praise is not, and can never be, even if God forbid it is uttered ritualistically, a destructive pattern.

I praise you Lord for rescuing us from our destructive patterned words and lifestyles, whether from a reclusive, stagnant hermetic one, or the aimless wanderings of a nomad, we bless you for showing us the more magnificent way of pilgrimage which lead directly towards you. (Psalm 84:5). We praise you Lord God for Jesus, who shows us Himself, the linear and not circular way, the truth and the life.

15. Praise helps us to listen. During one toil of trouble taking its toll there was an injustice done to me. Talking this through with Jenni she said something quite amazing. She said “I should allow people to make their mistakes.” Which was exactly what I needed to hear. But the reason this was so doubly amazing, was that not only did I feel pity for the individual over retribution, but that I actually ‘heard’ her. In the days past when I used to brood over something I was too much in my head to notice, never mind heed good advice, but it was praise that made me more outward-focused and thus more receptive to the voices around me that God uses to encourage and correct. There is much in this life that distracts us from good counsel right inside our village.

Praise be to you Lord for being a holy and holistic God, that you in your kindness and mercy
place people near me, to encourage, strengthen and add what is often lacking. (Mark 4:24)

16. Praise adds value to you as a human being, by giving you clarity, which then open the path to purpose. How does it work? As trials reorder our priorities it culls whatever is unimportant from your life, leaving new voids. It is important to know that Satan competes heavily for new real estate, which is why it becomes crucial to fill these new spaces with praise, otherwise he will squat and start building, (Matthew 12:43-45). Jesus, at the end of his ministry told his confidants that the ‘evil prince of this world’ was about to come, and then described him as “having no hold on me” (John 14:30). Five very important words we should periodically measure ourselves against. A simplified life born from praise takes care of the clarity, but what of purpose?

At times during this past year my value to society, my family and friendships were tested inasmuch as I felt I brought little to no value, which is dangerous ground to be on, because it meant I was influenced by the world’s standard of consumer relationships, and also because it simply wasn’t true, as my own children had to remind me of, which is a good example of how lies can creep into prayer. But it was also good ground to be on because I came before God emptied out, ‘poor in Spirit’ (Matthew 5:3), and remarkably it was the praise on my lips that lifted me and made me understand the paradox, that I was both vulnerable and valuable before my Lord. I felt overwhelmingly like this was what I was created for, that this was my life’s mission; to become an expert at giving my best, and my most tender words to the Lord my God.

We are made in God’s likeness, His reflection, which means His value, His majesty and glory are reflected onto us. He unfathomably praises us and puts us at the pinnacle of His creation, no matter what any perishing evolutionary biologist says, and so to praise Him means we not only reflect Him, but we indeed honour our design.

I praise you Lord for praise, which not only contributes to making my paths straight (Proverbs 3:6), but allows me to fulfill my purposes and design towards you, (Job 41:3).

17. Praise restores our confidence. I see myself on my knees, bent over pleading when I make my requests known. Requests that at times feels like I’m praying in a casino, red or black, what’s it gonna be? But when it comes to praise I straighten up and lift my face towards heaven, confident that my Lord hears and that my words are true. Successes can only be built on failures, just as much as praises can only be built on perils, as the Wesley brothers can attest to when they attempted to bring spiritual disciplines back into the church, but after their Methodist movement was rejected they took to the streets and countrysides where they were persecuted. Their response? Praise, which left the world with over six and a half thousand hymns.

There’s no doubt trials hurt us, knock us down, puts us on our knees, bends us, humbles us, bruises and sometimes breaks us, but it is praise that restores us into a quiet confidence as we rest our petitions on His promises. We are confident because we invite His will into our lives through praise. By acknowledging Him, we bring His power over every circumstance and even over ourselves.

I praise you Lord because you are not intimidated by this world. I bless you for being our confidant and confidence, (Hebrews 13:6).

18. Praise saves us from futile thoughts. Suffering has the tendency to haemorrhage your thinking as you imagine all kinds of scenarios and situations until you fret over solutions that is never likely to eventuate. Praise, and certainly the peace that comes from it, throws away what is useless, thwarts what is superfluous and kills what is redundant. Never before have I prayed more frequently and fervently for the Lord to give me clarity than during this year, but it was my constant praise of a Him that lifted the veil, put a guard in my mind and a guide on my tongue that eventually contributed to a levelling lawyer-like lucidity.

I praise you Lord for cleansing me from futile thoughts, useless endeavours (1 Samuel 12:22), and endless mythologies (1 Timothy 1:4), and for the clarity of my pilgrimage, (Psalm 32:8).

19. Praise is kissing. Someone once said that there is not a lack of knowledge in the world, but a lack of honesty. Though I agree with this statement, especially the lack of the knowledge of God, but why honesty? What does honesty get us? Honesty gets us intimacy. It is overwhelmingly what all people, class, gender, race craves above all, and it is praise which provides a way right into the Holy of Holies, right into God’s heart. Praise renews our marriage vows to the Lord, and does so daily. Not dissimilar to our own marriages when we demonstrate a renewal of our vows through every small act of encouragement and service. Every time we kiss our spouse or lavish on them our affections do we renew our commitment. King David wrote that we are to ‘kiss the Son’ (Psalm 2:12), what else but the praise we render. We follow our praise. When we praise our Lord, our lives will follow, and those kisses will bring us into an intimacy that will astound you.

I praise you Lord for our marriage, and I bless you for our intimacy, (Song of Songs 2:16). I love you Lord, and I belong to you as much as you belong to me, (Song of Songs 7:10).

20. Praise prevents the selfishness in us. Selfishness is one of the main reasons we do not relate well to our fellow man. Certainly the Bible has a lot to say about selfishness and in most cases in relation to our neighbour. I saw a Buddhist meme this week which said that “we don’t forgive others to put them at peace, but to put ourselves at peace.” While this is true, because we are indeed put at rest, it is also deeply selfish because we’re still looking out for number one, ourselves. Christ did not tell us to forgive others because it benefits ourselves, even though it does. But He also did not say we forgive because the recipients benefit from our graciousness. He told us we are to forgive because God forgave us our great debts. It’s this understanding of treating others the way we’ve been treated, extending the unmerited pardon showed towards us, that when it reaches our hearts will propel us, as best we can towards the most effective type of social justice, that is, endeavouring to provide ‘development’ over ‘relief’.

Accurate praise, and by accurate I mean a knowledge of the scriptures, will alert us, awaken us to our selfishness which seems to cling to the walls of our souls like mould. Our words sometime sound different on our lips than in our heads. They might at times sound ‘deep’ in our heads but once audible sounds incredibly shallow. Our words might sound selfless in our heads but once spilled from our tongues suddenly sound selfish. But in our praise of the Almighty we put the most sincere and honest attention on Him, as we feebly attempt to lavish on God what He so generously lavishes on us.

I praise you Lord for your unmatched selfless generosity, from the air we breathe to the love we receive, from the food we eat to the mercy seat, from the wisdom we drink to the way we think enables us to emulate and give back to our fellow man, (Proverbs 11:25). Thank you Lord.

21. Praise erases doubt. I’ll be honest with you, there are times during the Lord’s Prayer, the model prayer as laid down by Jesus, (Luke 11), that leaves me with doubts. Will I get my daily bread? Will I get the work necessary for growth? Will I be satisfied and satiated with the day’s goings on? Will the Lord’s will be done through me? Will I recognize it as the Lord’s will? Will I really be able to forgive my enemies from the heart, and will God really forgive me? Will I be led away from temptation and will evil really not touch me through bitterness and resentment? I praise the Lord for praise, for it is this activity alone which leaves absolutely no room for doubts, provided we are saturated enough with scripture as we articulate back to Him not only the promises He made to us, but how He’s fulfilled and satisfied each of our days.

I praise you Lord for your counsel, your wisdom, your peace and clarity, the perfect therapy you bring to an anxious and doubt-ridden world. We adore you for it, (Philippians 4:6-7).

22. Praise increases empathy. Some will say that empathy is one of the most important values increasingly missing in the world today, and some people on the receiving end desire and demand it, without wanting any evaluation of the reasons that might cause their respective sufferings. I find it personally harder and harder to compartmentalize, that is to say, show a happy face towards someone in a house of feasting, whilst knowing there are so many close to me or otherwise, in a house of mourning (Ecclesiastes 7:2). And yet, as hard as it may be, this is what we are required to do, (Romans 12:15). Praise is a good way to bridge that divide, and though binary-I have an aversion to the word, it is a way to ‘compromise’. What is empathy? It was during one of my trials when my mouth was filled with praise that I learnt of a friend’s suffering. Surprising, even to myself, I extended my praise of the Lord to him, offering words of hope, but not the cloying phrases that life will be better tomorrow but reminding him that we still worship a miracle God and the practical steps we can take to petition Him, which caused the man to rally with his faith community. It is praise that opens the right sluice, it is praise that allows the right words for the right time. This, I am convinced, is what the wisdom of empathy means.

I praise you Lord for the empathy and compassion you constantly show towards us (Psalm 103:13-14), making it all the more real that you are Dad and we are your kids, (1 John 3:1), and while my business card has a title that man gave me, yours say that you are the God of the poor, the orphaned and widowed, (James 1:27). You are well thought of, and indeed admired Lord, because of this.

23. Praise promotes equality. Embarrassing as it may be, there is in inclination for us during our own trials, to look for others in trial, and then to compare our sufferings so that if by chance someone has it worse, it might console us that we don’t have it as bad. If it’s not worse than ours we move on not offering the empathy or concern necessary to move alongside that person. It’s a coping mechanism I get it, but praising our Lord banishes that ‘competition of trials’, which is how praise then becomes the great equaliser. A community of faith, such as a Church, remains one such place where the poor are lifted up and the wealthy are brought low as they come together, week after week in praising the One who deserves our praise more than any other.

We praise you Lord for your startling impartiality (Romans 2:1, Deuteronomy 10:17), a very good part of your character that formed the faith communities around this world who relish your good gifts, peoples from every class structure, race, culture and background you have brought together in collective praise to demonstrate your desire for unity through equality. We praise you for that day you should even have us sit on your throne, (Revelation 3:21).

24. Praise guards the heart. Contrary to conventional wisdom that the mind overrules the heart, scripture teaches that our hearts are our core and that everything flows from it (Proverbs 4:23). The reason trials are sometimes so severe is because it has reached our core, which explains why we weep more, because we failed to protect our now busted pump. Praises are the antibodies that we pour into our hearts to counter and neutralize the poisons, if not practically to simply take back occupied territory, so that by the sheer multitude of force, once our hearts are filled with praises, it will spill from our tongues, for “out of the abundance of our hearts, our mouths speak.” (Matthew 12:34).

I praise you Lord that you, our treasure, have made your home in our hearts (Matthew 6:21). I praise you for guarding it, and for healing it, (Philippians 4:7).

25. Praise kills our enemies. It is important to note that King David, our role model supreme when it comes to praise, often prayed for the destruction of his enemies (Psalms 35, 59, 109) in a time before the cross. But he did so by laying all His grievances at God’s feet, praising God for His justice and encouraging the Lord to fight His battles. The Apostle Paul went further when he clearly stated that our enemies are often not people, but principalities, dark rulers and wicked spirits, (attitudes) (Ephesians 6:12), which can inhabit and make their homes inside of people.

Four of our darkest rulers, most wicked spirits and most threatening nemeses in our world today, responsible for so many genocidal deaths, physical and spiritual, are fears, suicides, pornography and hands down the most dangerous for its prolificacy – idolatry – whether patriotism or mountain bike the inordinate reverence of anything other than God. The good news however, is that praise destroys those destroyers, because when we praise, we are stepping into God’s house, God’s environment where all fear is banished. When we praise God we are stepping away from the world in which exists the perpetuating lie of nihilism, that life does not exist after death and into hope and a new way of living, taking self-harm and death permanently off the table. When we praise God we are gazing at His incredible beauty, which provides us a more excellent picture than the defilement of that intimacy through decaying experiential flesh. When we praise God, we are placing Him as our highest good, and thus thwarting every other idol vie-ing for that top position. How incredible.

I praise you my Lord for your incomparable beauty, and for your house with many rooms, (Psalm 27:4). And I praise you Lord for your Son the Christ, who came so we can not just have life, but have it more abundantly, (John 10:10).

26. Praise prevents sin. I imagine King David threw the cat among the pigeons when he wrote that “worry leads to evil” (Psalm 37:8). What sins then, does worry propagate? Apart from the fact that we don’t fully trust that God will work things out for those who love Him, creating in us a divided heart, we can construct lies to get out of a particular situation or out from underneath a trial, sometimes without even knowing we are doing so. I write from experience. We can also get unnecessarily angry which might cause us to lash out words we will never be able to retract. More embarrassing experiences. But the good news is that we cannot worry and praise at the same time, therefore it goes without saying that the more we praise our Lord in heaven in our words and in our hearts, the less we will sin.

I praise you Lord that we are done with sin (1 John 3:6), that we have Christ living in us, which makes it possible for us to love you the way that we should, (Matthew 22:37). How fortunate are we that you are a good God! (Matthew 19:17)

27. Praise fights unbelief. Dissecting the above point a little further it is often during trials I am filled with tremendous worry. What I couldn’t understand is why, after having been saturated with scripture and praise, which admittedly diminished and mitigated the severity of the suffering, I could never quite shake the lingering dread? Why was it loitering like a stray mangy Thailand dog that looked like it was about to bite me any minute? It is simply because worry is a form of unbelief, as articulated by that astute man who asked Jesus to see his belief and unbelief co-existing side my side (Mark 9:23-25).

It is helpful to recognize that what exacerbates worry and unbelief is that the world bombards us to be our own person, to be independent and not so needy, which we take before God who has a different economy, of seeing us as healthy individuals when we are utterly dependent on Him. It is quite a mindset to get used to. Praise therefore is an expression of dependency, which forms the basis and bedrock to our belief, designed to constantly repair that severed ‘fall-connection’ until the day of arrival. As I walk through this life it becomes abundantly clear how much I am, we all are affected, afflicted and infected by the fall, which is disheartening, except for the moments I praise His magnificent Name, for then there exists no unbelief in the comfort and security of praise.

I praise you Lord for my calling (2 Peter 1:10), and every other calling and crown in your world today, (Revelation 3:11). I bless you my Lord for showing yourself to those who draw near, in praise, as it helps kill this lingering gloom and stubborn virus that is unbelief, (James 4:8).

28. Praise is assisted. There’s no other way to say this. It happened one morning when I was praising the Lord for His Holy Spirit that a memory entered my mind. That placed memory told me something I already knew, that Jesus said we can ask anything in His name and He would grant it, and that asking, in most cases referred to the Holy Spirit, that He would give it to anyone who asked, without question, (Luke 11:9-13). Although I already have God’s Spirit, what was new about this memory, is that I had never thought to ask for more of it. If I was becoming as needy as I’ve been professing should I not do so daily? And so I did. I asked for more of his Spirit, as if it were my ‘daily bread’ and make no apologies for the gluttony of His Spirit since. I want more of it, constantly. Then, something amazing happened. Almost immediately I felt a different type of comfort overwhelm me, a different kind of peace descended. A joyful peace. And there is was… my joy returned to me wrapped inside this serene awakening. A beautiful conclusion to what it is that eradicates the residual worrying I did not know what to do with.

I praise you Lord for always listening for us, and hearing us as is evident in your perfect responses, (1 Peter 3:12). I praise you for the great comforter (John 16:7), your marvellous Spirit that translates our groanings and delivers them coherently to you, and for gifting us no ordinary peace, but a supernatural calm, that rests between, and beyond words.

29. Praise is war. King Jehoshaphat sent his singers first into battle to praise the Lord (2 Chronicles 20:21). This is significant because praise is not separate from a war campaign, but included as the first most important step in an overall strategy, and should therefore not surprise us why we have a persecuted church today. It’s still the hour before the battle. After another significant war in the book of Exodus, Moses built an altar to the Lord and called Him ‘Jehovah Nissi’, meaning, “the Lord is my Banner” (17:15). The importance of this should be considered, as banners are raised to rally the troops, raised for remembrance and raised to honour champions, which begs the question, not ‘what’, but ‘who’ is God’s banner? King David in Psalm 60:4 prophesied, eluding to the mystery of a rescuer not yet born; “…for those who fear you, (God), you have raised a banner to be unfurled against the bow.”

Jesus Christ is our banner against the bow. He was raised on a cross to rally His lovers. Every day He is raised in our praises of Him as He is exemplified more and more in the lives we lead, and He is raised to the high throne of heaven as our intermediary and the world’s champion.

We praise you Lord for your Son, our banner, Monarch, brother and friend, (John 15:15).

30. Praise is the beginning. In this life we will hurt, we will suffer pain and experience loss. We might believe we only live in order to die, and in the end, everyone gets what they believe. But if we praise God, when our hearts are enraptured with perpetual song for the lover of our souls, then we begin a new, never-ending, purposeful and joyous life. “We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.”

Praise the Lord for He is good.
Always. Every time.

Praise the Lord for He is light.
He shines on the faces of the righteous.

Praise the Lord, for He is our clarity.
He sees what no-one else can,
and gives hindsight, insight and foresight to all who asks.

Praise the Lord for among the wolves are His sheep.
Praise Him for His purposes run deep.

Praise the Lord for He is love,
from which we can never be separated.

Praise the Lord for He is my perfect Shepherd.
He places me exactly where I need to be,
and I lack nothing.

Praise the Lord for He is our rescuer.
He refines and defines us through these fires,
so that we might be saved from that eternal blaze.

Praise the Lord for He is Alpha and Omega.
He is the respite and the conclusion to every trial.

Praise the Lord, for He loves me,
not unconditionally, but regardless,
a silly, stupid sinner, whom He calls son.

Praise be to you my Lord,
for not forgetting us in our old age.
You fill us with strength, vigour and insights.

Praise be to you my Lord, for you love justice.
Although you put much right in this life,
you are completing your justice still.

Praise be to you my Lord, for your leniency during this amnesty,
where you look on all with dignity and potential,
and discard none. How then can I?

Praise be to you my Lord, for you are Holy.
The angrier you get, the more you are filled with compassion.

Praise be to you my Lord, for your servant heart.
You stoop to make us great.

Praise be to my Lord, for your patience and persistence.
Though you condescend, you are set on our renovation.

Praise be to you Lord, for all your love languages.
Even for the silence between you and I,
one of the richest languages you employ.

Praise be to you Lord, for you are God.
There is none like, nor ever will be.
All your solutions are perfect.

Praise be to you my Lord for your attentiveness.
You answer every single prayer, never tiring of our requests.
I shall let you be God.

Bless you Lord my origin and destination.
I am so proud to call you my Father.

Bless you Lord, for your just impartiality.
You never show favouritism,
as you continually scatter your common grace on all people.

I praise you Lord for your startling love to all people.
For provided better vocations to those who have left my employ.
For that you are wonderful.

Praise you my Lord, for your friendship.
It is the most valuable thing I own.

Praise be to you Lord, for you truly are King.
You rule the rulers of our world.
They can do nothing unless you will it so.

Praise be to you my Lord, that the future is good.
The rapture imminent, our Kingdom permanent.
Today is a perfect day to come and fetch us.

Praise be to you Lord, for you are Creator.
You made the world and everything in it.

Praise be to you Lord for your legendary stalwart courage.
For while we might be intimidated by the world, you are not.

Praise be to you Lord, for giving the Holy Spirit to all who ask
Your generosity with something so preciously powerful is unfathomable,
and simply takes my breath away.

Praise be to you my Lord, for your empathy.
The amazing concern and gentleness when showing me my errors,
and using it for good, constantly bring me to tears.

Praise be to you Lord, for leaving us your Word.
Narratives and love letters to strengthen us each and every day.
It’s like drawing sweet waters from a well, from depths not yet reached.

I praise you my Lord for your integrity.
You are the same God in every circumstance.
Our rock, refuge, wings and North Star, on whom we can always rely.

I praise you Lord for our Kingdom.
A Kingdom of peace where we’ll always see you face to face.

I praise you Lord for your promises.
Every one of them you have fulfilled, and are still fulfilling.

Praise be to you Lord, for your Sabbath rest,
where we can celebrate being free men and women.

I praise you Lord because you are the God of the poor, the weak and the lonely.
I bless you my Lord for the pity you have shown me personally.
For the beautiful children and perfect wife you’ve placed me amongst.

Praise be to you Lord, for you are the Rock,
when we suffer insecurities and periods on unbelief.

Praise be to you my Lord, for the hardship you’ve brought upon me.
I know I will, not through my endeavouring, be better than I am now.

Praise be to you my Lord, for you are our hope.
The real in contrast to the fictitious and the substance in contrast to the ephemeral.

I bless you Lord, for you only,
are better than our best.