Worship: From Silence to SongExemplo

It Starts with Praise

Let them praise the name of the LORD! For he commanded and they were created. (v. 5)

Out of the silence of the darkness of nothingness, God spoke . . . and creation happened. Every sound and color exploded into being, shouting “Alleluia!”—a holy ruckus of praise to God. But mountains and snowflakes, trees and galaxies don’t know that they are praising God. A stone can’t look at another stone and watch it sing its alleluias to God. One raindrop can’t tell another raindrop where this world came from and where it’s going. One of the reasons God created us is so that somebody would be here, in the world, to watch the Great Story unfold.

Not only do we watch the world praising God, but in some mysterious way, we join Jesus in being the “worship leaders” of creation. Like the psalmist in Psalm 148, we urge creation to do what it was created to do: to burst out in infectious, joyous praise to God. Oddly enough, even though we are supposed to be calling all of creation to praise God, we are often playing catch-up behind everything else. All of the earth is already praising God; we are the ones who have to struggle to praise him. Every time we walk into a worship service, we are already late, because the creation started praising God a long time ago. We’ve got to start somewhere, though, and Psalm 148 reminds us where to start. We begin our worship by praising God.

As you pray, acknowledge that everything around you is praising God, and then offer your own praise to him.