Merci Beacoup

At prayer this morning:

from Psalm 145
I will extol thee, my God and king,
and bless thy name for ever and ever.
Every day I will bless thee,
and praise thy name for ever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall laud they works to another,
and shall declare thy mighty acts.

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Right-o.

So how often do I do this, exactly? How often do I actually praise the Lord?

I know God loves me, but in the Great Daycare of the World where God is the proprietor and all the rest of us are His children, there's this sweet little angel choir over here, and a nice, orderly craft table gluing cotton balls on sheep over there, and then there's me, wrapped around His mighty leg and sitting on His foot, making a sound exactly like this one, until He threatens to take my dessert away:



And actually, you know what? He doesn't threaten anything, but calmly drags me around all day, every day, until something sparkly on the playground catches my eye and I run off as if it had never happened.

Whenever I read these exhortations to praise the Lord without ceasing, to praise Him every day, to make the praise of Him the meat in the sandwich of my prayers, I know that I am sorely lacking. I'm one who ran out on the check, who pumped and didn't pay. Frankly, I'm the pinch-faced vegetarian at the Praise Barbecue*.

Twisting that last metaphor out of the package just a little bit, you know what it tells me? When I don't praise the Lord as much as I should-- when I don't try often enough to offer back praise that will never even begin to reach the height of the benefits I receive from Him but at least makes an honest and joyful attempt-- as in so many other ways in my life in which I am too often abstemious, I am the one missing out. The praise of Him is delicious, delicious steak, yet I am content with gnawing carrots.

Absolutely God is 100% to be praised completely and totally selflessly just because He is who He is, but those times that I have allowed myself to meditate on His greatness (which doesn't = me in a dark room swaying or weeping and listening to Amy Grant**, but more likely sitting quietly for a long time outside or realizing the joy of His hand at work in my life and being spontaneously amazed)-- it feels really, really good to acknowledge that. Incredibly good. Meet and right so to do.

Obviously knowing this doesn't mean I'm going to forever relinquish my place beneath His robes, and God knows that and is OK with it. He's more than OK with it, actually, which in and of itself is an amazing realization. I've mentioned before that I have trouble writing thank you notes, but I also have trouble embracing that as some sort of quirky/endearing/OK part of myself. Inability to show gratitude, for whatever reason, is never to embraced.

It's something important I need to work on.

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*MUCH LOVE to all my vegetarian peeps, and your faces aren't pinchy; just roll with me for a second here.

**Although, please-- more power to you if that's what it means for you. You know, Amy Grant was Mr. Milkweed's first concert ever. TRUTH.

Edit: You know what? It still feels fake to me to capitalize "He" and "Him" all the time. Do I seriously have to do that? Is that an iron-clad requirement amongst polite Christians? Thoughts?

Am I so very polite, anyway?