The Power of Praise

Praise is something that doesn’t always come easy to me. My husband has the distinct ability to go move quickly to praise when he is struggling. In fact, recently he was awakened in the middle of the night troubled about a situation. If that were me, I would’ve probably laid there pondering the situation over, and allowing it to grow in my mind, soon to overcome my thoughts and get the best of me.

I want to be more like my husband, in that he immediately turned to praise. We were both awake, because he woke me up to ask, “Do you mind if I turn on praise music to try to fall back asleep?” My answer, “Yes, please do.”

Again, this is not a natural response to me, and I am working on growing for this to become more natural. What happens as we praise is we begin to focus on our God and His power, rather than our problem and the false power that problem seems to have over us.

In Acts 16 we read the story of Paul and Silas and the power of praise in their lives. In verses 16-21 we see a slave girl who had a python spirit (Greek: pnema pythona), meaning she was able to predict the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners. She followed Paul and Silas. She would shout “these men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days, and finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her!” At that moment, the spirit left her. When her slave owners found out and realized their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the marketplace to face authorities, where they would eventually be stripped, flogged and beaten. After this, they were thrown into prison, and put in the inner cell, with their feet fastened in the stocks.

It’s interesting as I was taught this story as a child, it was taught that Paul and Silas begin praising God while in prison and the chains were broken, and they were freed. The “jest” of the Bible story was as the freedom that came in praise for Paul and Silas, and indeed, that did happen. However, upon further study of this story, I am challenged by Paul and Silas’ decision to praise. They chose to praise. Praise is a choice.

Think about this: Paul and Silas were beaten and flogged. If you know anything about flogging, public flogging was a cruel and brutal punishment. Chances are, they had broken ribs and were at the least severely beaten, yet Paul found the strength within him to praise from prison and it literally changed the circumstances.

I am not saying that every time we praise, our circumstances will be changed. But, I am sure that if we choose to praise, our perception of our circumstances will be changed, and help us focus on the positives rather than the negative. May I challenge you today, along with myself, to choose to praise. I promise, we won’t be disappointed.