 |
| Three hour-long sunset during the summer soltice in Alaska; taken at midnight (courtesy of my daughter, Nellie, and her husband, Dustin Vail, 2008 ) |
My wife and I sometimes try to name all the colors that we see in a sunset. There are problems with that: I’m not an artist, so my vocabulary of color names is limited to something like the 24-pack of Crayolas™ (remember "periwinkle"?). God’s palette is much richer than my vocabulary. Another problem is my lack of perception of all the subtle nuances of color, one ever so slightly different from another. And then, as soon as I try to describe the colors in one single cloud, the colors have all changed as the angle of the sun shifts down or as the cloud itself shifts.
Sunsets are a dynamic art; kind of like those little tubular kaleidoscopes you looked through as a kid, the colors and patterns constantly changing as you twist the end of the cardboard tube. Beauty upon beauty. Sunsets are like that. God is like that … beauty upon beauty if we will stop to notice. Lifestyle worship is about stopping to notice the beauty, the attributes and nature of God—how He impacts our lives, how we don’t deserve it—and then responding appropriately in praise and thanksgiving to Him . . . lavish praise, free and unbridled praise.
Did you know that the LORD is listening and hears when you praise Him? . . . And that He responds? . . . And that it makes Him smile? . . . The Bible says:
“For the LORD takes delight in his people …
Psalm 145 is like a hymn of praise to God, written by King David nearly 3000 years ago. Praise is very much a verb, an action. Our English word, “praise”, is from an Old French word meaning “to prize”.
Check out Psalm 145. As you read through it, notice all the verbs, I will:
praise…exalt…extol…commend…tell…speak…meditate…proclaim…celebrate…joyfully sing.
You can use Psalm 145 to look at a few of the many sides of God, like a God-kaleidoscope, to see Him as He truly is: beauty upon beauty.
No comments:
Post a Comment