How do I write words of praise or adoration?

Frequently, words of praise or adoration are exclamatory and can also be expressed in song, dance, art, or other expressions of praise or adoration. We can praise God for the good things that God does for us. While we can write our own words (and should), we can also use the models of praise and adoration that are found in the Bible and that have been used for generations:

• Exodus 15, I will praise my God, who is my strength and might
• 1 Kings 8:23, 56–58, "There is no God like you"
• 1 Chronicles 16:23–25, "Sing to the Lord, all the earth"
• 1Chronicles 29:10–14, David praised the Lord
• Psalm 8:1–2, "O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"
• Psalm 36:5–9, "Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens"
• Psalm 92:1–5, 8, it is good to sing praises to the Lord
• Psalm 22:22, "in the midst of the congregation I will praise you"
• Psalm 29:1–2, "Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name"
• Psalm 67:3–4, let the nations be glad and sing for joy
• Psalm 72:18–19, God does wondrous things
• Psalm 97:12, praise God's holy name
• Psalm 145:1, 3, no one can fathom God's greatness
• Psalm 150, praise God in his sanctuary
• Jeremiah 20:13, praise the Lord, for he has delivered the life of the needy
• Daniel 2:20, "Blessed be the name of God"
• Luke 1:46–49, Mary's Magnificat
• Romans 11:33–36, doxology
• Ephesians 1:3–18, praise for spiritual blessings in Christ
• Ephesians 5:18–19, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs
• Revelation 4:10–11, the twenty-four elders fall before the one on the throne
• Revelation 5:9–13, praise before the throne of God

Where do we find words of praise or adoration in the Bible?

The people of God have always sung their praise. And we know why! Enthusiasm makes you want to raise your voice. Enthusiasm is always looking for a tune. So the psalms are songs. The psalter is the church's songbook. Some of the faith and praise in the psalms come from believers who have "calmed and quieted" their souls "like a weaned child with its mother" (Psalm 131:2). Quiet, thoughtful praise and thanks are always available to the believer and welcome to God. That's why in some Christian liturgies there are spaces occupied by silence—a silence that is not repressive, but pregnant with possibility and promise.

But, judging by Psalm 150 and other scriptures, singing to the Lord can at other times get a little rowdy. Lute and harp are dulcet enough. But then the trumpeters sound off. People start to bang their tambourines. People "praise God with clanging cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!" They start to dance. It's as if the psalmist is crying out, "Sing, blow, shout, bang, pluck. Raise the roof. Make a ruckus." Why? Because God is straightening out our mess!

But authentic worship of God isn't just praise. Some psalms (e.g., Psalm 51) are confessions of sin. Many of the psalms are laments. People cry to God from distress, turmoil, trouble. "Why, O God?" "When, O God?" "How long, O God?" The psalms model for us the moods and postures of faith. "All praise, all the time" worship is missing this biblical richness. Importantly, worship that ignores the sin and distress of God's people fails to square up with reality.

Remarkably, almost all the lament psalms eventually resolve into praise, and they do so because the word of praise is not only the first word of faith, but also the last. It may seem as if God has gone off duty. It may seem as if God has moved and not left a forwarding address. But the person of faith cannot give up. As Peter said to Jesus, "To whom [else] can we go?" (John 6:68). Even the disquieted soul hopes in God and predicts that one day "I shall again praise him, my help and my God" (Psalm 42:11).

Of course God is to be praised for wisdom, power, and glory, which in scripture is a kind of weighty light that surrounds God. But notice that God's justice weighs a lot as a reason to praise, and especially God's salvation. God straightens out Jacob son of Isaac—one of the shiftiest men in the Bible, a real wheeler-dealer. Forever after, God is known as "the God of Jacob." This is a God with grace for the shiftiest and a knack for making them whole. And not just Jacob: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. . . . God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:16–17). No repetition of these verses can diminish their wallops. They alone give us endless motive for praising God.

What is praise?

Praise is a sign of alertness. The person who praises God, praises others, praises creation and the beauty within it, and noble accomplishments, and kindness, mercy, and goodness—this is a person who is alert. When she is out and about, her radar is on. She notices things. She reads scripture, or hears it, and she picks up on qualities of God she hadn't noticed before. A friend pays a compliment to another friend and reveals by the high quality of the compliment that she has spotted something not everyone would. She notes that woodpeckers call and respond to each other. She sees that in gusty rainstorms the trees really do look as if they are clapping their hands.

Moreover, the alert person who has a light trigger for praising also is quick to call attention to excellence. "Have you ever noticed how patient God is with imperfect saints?" "Have you reflected on the extraordinary generosity Jim and Betty show to Betty's mom?" "Look! Three porpoises are breaching and diving alongside our boat! They're perfectly lined up and they're keeping pace! Amazing!"

The person who praises doesn't merely approve or admire. He does do these things. But in classic praise he really gets into it. Here's an example: Sometime in the last several decades North Americans adopted the habit of expressing their approval by simply saying "Yes!" Actually, they don't just say "yes"; they exclaim it. Your team kicks a winning goal: "Yes!" Your paper wins your professor's approval: "Yes!" Your spouse graduates from cooking school: "Yes!"

In the Bible, praise is the long way of spelling "Yes!" Believers know that God is great. They know that God is good, and naturally they want to say so. But sometimes saying so doesn't seem good enough. Praise has to have an upsurge of enthusiasm in it. So when God redeems Israel out of Egypt, Moses and Miriam sing their praise. You can't just say your praise; you have to sing to the Lord! And they didn't just sing. They danced too. And they didn't just sing and dance. They played their timbrels too. Their innards were roiling with excitement, and it had to get out!

Good people make the world ring with praise. In his Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis remarks that good people make the world ring with praise—not only praise of God in public worship, but also of landscapes, music, friends, children, noble deeds, flowers, mountains. Praising is part of what God has designed good people to do: to notice, appreciate, laud, applaud. "Cranks, misfits, and malcontents" hardly praise at all. Good folks praise all the time, because praise is part of expressing their health. In fact, praise is "inner health made audible" (C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1958, 94).

An obvious reason this is so occurs to us on simple reflection. Widespread healthy praise is a preventative for the deadly sins of pride and envy. When we are full of praise we cannot also be full of arrogance and resentment of others' good fortune. Moreover, if we celebrate excellence in God, in other people, in all creation, we will be celebrating all the time. And celebration dissipates anxiety and depression.

Lewis adds that those who praise want others to join in. "Isn't she lovely?" "Wasn't it glorious?" The psalmists constantly tell others to "praise the Lord" ("Allelujah" in Hebrew). What the psalmists are after is not just their own praise, but a chorus of praise, a chorus of witnesses. My praise is amplified, augmented, completed when you join in (Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, 95). In fact, the psalmists sometimes can hardly contain themselves when calling for praise.

So in Psalm 98, the psalmist begins by calling to his first audience—probably the temple people—to "sing to the Lord a new song." Then he calls to all the peoples of the earth: "Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth" (Psalm 98:4). Then he calls to all nature to join the celebration of God's reign: "Let the sea roar. . . . Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy" (Psalm 98:7–8).

To think of everything—all peoples, places, and things—singing and shouting for joy to the Lord is an extraordinary thought, and a true anticipation of some of the wonders in the new heaven and earth. It's not just that we will finally have peace and justice. We will also have eternal delights marked by music and acclamation as people join their voices to each other and to all nature, which sings and rings with joy, even the trees and the wolves and the lambs taking part, each in their own particular way. Children shouting in astonishment, dogs barking, ducks quacking, birds calling, whales singing, elephants trumpeting, lions roaring, horses whinnying—every creature, great and small, adding its unique voice.

This is a celebration not to be missed.