Following the opening sentence of Scripture and the Confession, the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer continue with The Invitatory, which, as its name suggests, invites us to lift our hearts to the Lord in praise.
The call-and-response prayers using the words of Psalm 51 ask the Lord to open our lips, so that our mouth shall proclaim His praise. We ask the Lord for grace to come to our aid, so that we might worship Him in Spirit and in truth. We give glory to the Holy Trinity and declare our intent to praise the Lord. Then we move into canticles (this word just means “little songs”) of praise meant to lift our hearts to the glory of God—the Venite (Psalm 95) in Morning Prayer, and the Phos Hilaron (O Gladsome Light) in Evening Prayer. Praise and adoration of our God continue through other canticles interspersed throughout the Scripture lessons.
If we allow it, the Daily Office will form and shape us as a people of praise, who are ever ready to proclaim the goodness of our God, and who are equipped with words of Scripture to do so. This is something the Lord desires to form in us, and we need His grace for this!
Given that the Lord is forming us as a people of praise, I’d like to reflect here with you all about what praise is, what it does to us, and how we grow in it.
What is Praise?
Fundamentally, praise is telling the truth about God—who He is and what He has done. It is proclaiming truth, and since all truth is to the glory of God, it is praise. Acts of praise and adoration help us to know properly who God is, that He is the worthy one! We can praise many things—a beautiful sunset, a child who we are proud of in their accomplishment, a skillful musician, and these may all be worthy things to praise. But the Lord is the source of all of that beauty, truth, and goodness, and He alone is worthy of our highest and most consistent praise. We give Him glory, we declare His goodness and love and power and salvation and all of His attributes, because He deserves it, and because this is what we were made to do.
We can think about praise as the expression of our love and our thanks and our devotion to God, directing our thoughts toward Him in these things. Praise is love in action, thankfulness in expression, joy and appreciation coming out of our hearts and minds and through our lips. Praise can look a lot of different ways—from the bodily expressions like lifting up our hands or clapping or singing, to the quiet blessing of the Lord in our hearts. However it looks, we are directing toward God the praise and honor that He is due, seeking to glorify the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit above all things.
What does Praise do to us?
Praise is where we meet with God. Psalm 22:3 declares, “Yet You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.” The Lord inhabits the praises of His people, and is enthroned and dwells upon our proclamations and songs and cries of praise. When you praise the Lord, you are making a home in your heart for Him to be enthroned, to make His dwelling place on the throne of your heart.
This is why praise and adoration of God leads to our intimacy with Him. If you want to know and feel God’s presence with you, praise Him. Declare His goodness and love. Sing of His glory and power. Give thanks for His mercy and loving salvation. When you place Him on the throne of your heart (which means dis-placing yourself from that seat!), you will know His presence with you.
Praise also brings us into the joy of God. Because praise is the culmination of our enjoyment of Him. C.S. Lewis, reflecting on this, wrote,
“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.”
This is why the Westminster Shorter Catechism declares that the chief end goal of humanity, our purpose for being, is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
Praise is the pathway to joy. When our hearts are lifted up and glorifying God, proclaiming the truth about who He is and what He has done, our hearts are soaking in His goodness and erupting with thankfulness. We are in alignment with and expressing the truth and the glory and the love that we were made for. This is our deepest joy.
How do we grow in Praise?
We grow in praise by praising. We let the discipline of praise shape our hearts of praise. If you make it a daily habit to proclaim or sing or say the praises that God is due, then you are forming your heart and mind to know that He is always worthy, and that your duty and joy is to give Him praise.
We grow in praise by soaking in the truths of God, abiding in His Word, and by recalling His infinite goodness and mercy. The puritan Thomas Watson wrote,
“The deepest springs yield the sweetest water; the more deeply sensible we are of God’s covenant-love to us, the sweeter praises we should yield.”
The more we know and seek to understand who God is and what He has done, the richer and deeper and higher and wider our praise of Him will naturally be.
We grow in praise by allowing the words of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (Colossians 3:16) to lead us. As in a dance with a partner, one partner needs to take the lead, and the other follows. The psalms and canticles are given to lead our hearts into the presence of God, and our job is to keep in step. Christopher Ash, commenting on the Psalms, wrote
“We are unable to stir up our own drowsy hearts, but the psalm itself is God’s instrument to warm our cold hearts and reorder our disordered affections. The very action of singing the psalm stirs us to do what it says.”
We join our minds, our hearts, and our wills to these words of praise, and they will form us in praise.
Conclusion
Psalm 145:3 declares, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised!” We can spend the rest of our lives seeking to give to the Lord the praises that He is worthy of, and I believe we will continue to grow in praise throughout all eternity with the Lord in heaven. We want to allow our prayer lives, and the habits of our daily prayers, to be forming us as a people of praise.
To close, I wonder if you would take a minute with me to pray these words of praise in one of the great canticles of Christian history, the Te Deum. If you’re comfortable with it, pray this out loud, and let these words lift your heart in glorious praise:
We praise you, O God; we acclaim you as Lord; *
all creation worships you, the Father everlasting.
To you all angels, all the powers of heaven, *
the cherubim and seraphim, sing in endless praise:
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of power and might, *
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
The glorious company of apostles praise you. *
The noble fellowship of prophets praise you.
The white-robed army of martyrs praise you. *
Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you:
Father, of majesty unbounded,
your true and only Son, worthy of all praise, *
and the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide.
You, Christ, are the king of glory, *
the eternal Son of the Father.
When you took our flesh to set us free *
you humbly chose the Virgin’s womb.
You overcame the sting of death *
and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
You are seated at God’s right hand in glory. *
We believe that you will come to be our judge.
Come then, Lord, and help your people, *
bought with the price of your own blood,
and bring us with your saints *
to glory everlasting.
For Your Reflection:
- What qualities, attributes, or works of God strike you as most wonderful today, in this moment? Take a minute to speak that to Him and praise Him for it.
- Reflect on what habits or heart postures keep you from praising God—is it pride? Embarrassment? Guilt? Self-focus? Distraction? Lack of knowledge of God?
- Try praying this prayer from Psalm 51—“O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim Your praise.” Allow the Lord to open your lips, and open your heart to praise Him.
- How would you ask the Lord to help you grow in praising Him?