Entering God’s Presence By Praise

“God lives in the place of praise. If we want to be where He is, we need to go to His address.”

— Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Many people are determined to never know God, purely by their utter blind rejections to not have anything to do with spirituality and the topic of God. Add to their number the perennially hurt; those who insist on staying hurt and not being healed. Completing the sample complement are those who find very little reason to praise, but find no lack of cause to complain, to moan in disdain as if everything were cursed.

But going to the Presence of God is just as much about going to the Temple of Praise as it is going the some secluded monastery where piety is supposedly never more special.

Can we encompass our minds with the cherished state of entering God’s Presence by praise?

Are we able to find room within the mental fissures of thought and the caverns of the heart that hold us open to praise and wonder, even, hazard to say, in the midst of pain?

Certainly there are limits. However, the more we praise—filling our hearts with copious overtures to the living God—the more we can receive blessings for the abundant life within the realm of the Presence of God.

Not Positive Thinking

If we were to take God out of the equation, we might see how finding energy to praise, yes even God, could be procured through positive thinking, alone.

We would do it in our own strength. Anyone can think positively and make a positive impact, achieving many things through their positive thinking.

But the practice of real Christianity runs far beyond positive thinking. It takes the sights and sounds of life, especially when we run foul of them, and it transposes a healthier, appropriately responsive pattern of thinking and, therefore, doing.

Positive thinking can work in many situations, but it never really works, without God’s help, when we are suffering or struggling or despairing.

When the rubber hits the road in the midst of life, and character tests come to the fore, testing our mettle, we have one approach that works amongst myriad approaches that don’t.

Faith works as it is applied, and it may only be applied within the moment’s struggle. We cannot take it out on loan, or save our faith up; it’s a momentary commodity implicit of truth and courage to do what must be done.

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Despite the awkwardness of feeling—sorrow, anxiousness, fatigue, etc—there is a way to be with God. It is by praise that we come into the Lord’s Presence. God deserves nothing short of awe-filled respect, and when we worship these ways, through praise, we draw never closer to the Presence of God, who helps.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.