Rev. Cliff Ritter 

Psalm 150:6
“Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!”

Reflection:
The final word from our Book of Hebrew poetry gives us a clear imperative. In all things, and in all ways, at every opportunity, we are to praise the Lord. Indeed, to praise the LORD is to place a spiritual exclamation mark on our worship. It is our opportunity to declare our love for God, an opportunity to shout, or sing, or dance our highest form of exaltation before God. So long as we have breath in our lungs, we are to give God all praise. It is the end game of our worship.

The Psalmist helps us to crash through any perceived limit upon our praise. We are to praise God from within the sanctuary, and across the highest heavens. We praise God from our most intimate place of personal worship, and we praise God when we press the outer limits of our created space. We praise God for what God has done, and we praise God for who God is to us, simply because God is great. 

With poetic license, we offer unending, unbounded, unadulterated praise for God’s excellence! With trumpets, lutes, harps, and tambourine we craft the musical score of worship in our souls. With strings, and pipe, and sounding cymbals, we literally let go of our most exalted acts of praise. The crescendo of clashing symbols marks the space and time when we exhaust our heartfelt acts of praise and we fall on our face before God’s throne. With every breath we give God praise!

Why does this seem so hard? Worshipping God with reckless abandon is something we desire, but our inner voice tells us not to take things too far. We wouldn’t want things to get out of hand, lest we embarrass ourselves by being too overly exuberant. Say’s who? 

David certainly let it all hang out when he danced before the ark of the Lord. Scripture says “David danced before the LORD with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting and with the sound of the horn” (2 Samuel 6:14-15). He was so over the top that Michal, the daughter of Saul, despised David in her heart upon seeing him out her window, leaping and dancing before the Lord. What a scene he caused!

When was the last time we were accused of being improper in our bold, exuberant worship of the LORD? When was the last time the neighbors snapped their tongues and shook their fingers in our faces because we were too loud or over the top for God?  Can’t recall? Well, like the Wolf brand Chili advertisement says, “It’s been too long.” 

Prayer:
Lord God, give us a renewed boldness in your presence. Help us to worship you in ways that attract the attention of the world around us. Give us the courage to shout and dance and sing our praises to you. Let us give thanks for what you have done. Amen.