Why Do We Praise God?
This is not a rhetorical question. I would like to hear from people why they think we should praise God. I am not questioning the need to praise God. Praise of God is everywhere in the Bible, including the Lord’s Prayer.
I am one of those people that don’t like doing things unless they understand why. For most of my life I never understood why we should praise God. In Thomas Merton’s book, Praying the Psalms, (follow the link and scroll down for my review) he says that we need to praise God in order to condition ourselves to be able to feel loved by God. This makes sense to me. This sounds similar to an idea that I heard about petitioning God, that even though God knows what we need, we should petition God in order to condition ourselves to receive his gifts. From my own sense, I wonder if we need to praise God in order to remind ourselves that He loves us. But this is the same as what Thomas Merton says.
I want to hear what others have to say. I am as interested in "catechetical" type anwers as much as any other, as these are often good jumping off points for insight.
posted by Stephen M. Bauer @ 8:27 AM
4 Comments:
We praise God because we were created to do so, no less than the river was created to flow.
We praise God because God deserves our praise.
Most of all, we praise God because we find, more and more as we do so, that praising God releases our joy.
We praise God because God Is and I Am, without God I will not be neither will you. Everything that we see is an illusion that is to say it is not real and should not be praise. Only the unseen that can be seen from the spirit within should be praise, such as GOD. Love is unseen, faith is unseen,kindness is unseen, goodness is unseen, etc.
Hi, on my blog I just happen to have information on why we praise the Lord.
Here's the address, it's down the first page a ways, but I think it may help you.
Living For God - Prasie God
We praise God because it opens up a part of us that otherwise remains closed. If you pay close attention, you can feel that happening inside yourself when you express praise and gratitude. Certainly God does not need our praise, and He doesn't particularly deserve it, either. He did not create the universe at our behest; He does what He does for whatever purpose He may have. For us to pretend that we have any idea what that might be about is purely anthropomorphizing.
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