Thought for the Day – Monday 6th July
‘Praise the Lord! Praise God
in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament! Praise him for his mighty
deeds; praise him according to his surpassing greatness! Praise him with
trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and
dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with clanging cymbals; praise
him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that breathes praise
the Lord! Praise the Lord!’ (Psalm 150)
It is always good on a Monday morning to start the day with praise!
Notice though that we are being encouraged to not just verbally praise
our God but to praise him with music too! In fact, with a whole host of musical
instruments and I love the way we are to praise God not just with clanging
cymbals but then as if that is not enough praise with loud clashing cymbals too!
A whole cacophony of praise!
Well they do say music is the food of love don’t they?
It is certainly a gift given to us by God and what a wonderful gift it
is too!
Music can convey all types of emotion – happiness, sadness, joy,
despair, celebration, loneliness, love, hate - the list could go on and on.
There are sounds which grate and those which soothe and as a result music can
take us to high places and to low places. Within music the tempo can change
from ‘largo’ to ‘prestissimo’, the volume can change from ‘pianissimo’ to ‘fortissimo’,
the beat can change from ‘slow’ to ‘fast’ encouraging us to either sway to
the music or dance enthusiastically to the music!
Music is just such a great gift from God and whether we like the
loudest music resonating through our bones or the softest piano playing at
barely a whisper rippling in our ears God has given to us the food of love –
music – and through music everything that breathes can indeed praise the Lord!
However, not everyone likes music or indeed would feel comfortable
worshipping God in such an enthusiastic and exuberant way say on a Sunday
morning in church – some might say ‘heaven forbid’ if musical instruments were
to be rolled out to praise God!
So, let’s not miss the point of this Psalm here – music is simply one
gift we are given by God with which to praise him, but we are given so many
others too! Each of us has so many God-given gifts and this Psalm is telling us
that we should use all those gifts we have to praise God.
Also notice the Psalm doesn’t give us a reason to praise God so
exuberantly - we are told just to get on with it – to get praising!
So, let’s do just that in our lives and praise our God, exuberantly
with whatever gifts we have been given by him!
Prayer
Loving Lord,
In offering you our praise Lord, we may sing with angel voices or we
may be afraid to open our mouths. We may strike up a chord to play in praise of
you or our fingers may fumble. We may dance like “Strictly” stars or have two
left feet. Yet, what we can all do, Lord, is offer you all these gifts you have
given to us as a sign of our praise and a sign of our commitment to serve you
in whatever way we can. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen
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