sunday praise...because of who He is

It's difficult sometimes, on these grey January days, to keep your spirits up. The bustle of the holidays is over, the promise of spring still seems far away, and life has settled into what can become a dull routine of school, laundry, housework, cooking, answering a thousand questions and moderating a thousand squabbles.

Yesterday while I was fixing supper, Ethan came to me and said, "I don't know why, but for some reason I just feel mad." I don't think mad was exactly the word, but it was the closest that he could come to to describing his January blahs.

The teachable moment leaped out at me. This was where I could begin to teach him that he is not the victim of his emotions. It is a lesson that I often fail but one that that I do know the answers to.

We cranked up praise music on Pandora. Then I asked him to help me unload the dishwasher before supper. Praise plus service is the answer to the January blahs.

You know what? In five minutes, he was singing along to Jeremy Camp and cheerfully putting silverware away.

The days are still grey. The world is still, in many ways, a really rotten place. There is nothing like an election year to bring that fact clearly into focus. The temptation to succumb to depression or to hide my head in the sand and ignore what goes on around me is great. Praising God doesn't necessarily change the fact that I have heard children argue fifty-six times in the last sixty minutes or that the president covertly signed away yet another of our freedoms over the weekend.

But it changes me.

Today my Sunday praise is not my own words but the words of a man who many years ago lived through pain and difficulty and emerged as a man after God's own heart.

"Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name."

"Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice."

"He is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved."

"For thou hast been a shalter for me and a strong tower from the enemy."

"For thou, O God, hast heard my vows: thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name...so I will sing praise unto thy name for ever."