Philip G. Ney 27/4/2015
“Praise the Lord”, shouted the young enthusiastic pastor. There was a muted response.
Someone with more than the average temerity shouted back, “How do we do that properly?”
There was stunned silence. “Yes”, said another, “show us how”.
More stunned silence. The pastor was about to retreat to his office with a severe headache, when a young fellow stood straight up and shouted above the hubbub. “Let me show you”.
Before the pastor could say, “no’, the young man’s wife stood up to support her embattled spouse. “We will show you together”
They faced each other. “I understand you worship Jesus. Please tell me about Him”, said she.
“Well He is extremely intelligent”, he began slowly. Then more rapidly and with enthusiasm. “He is also holy. He will not tolerate any imperfection or rebellion in His heaven. He is mighty enough to create 800 billion suns in each of 800 billion galaxies. Any you know what, He…….”
The young man waxed eloquent with many adjectives and examples from his own life untill his wife was overawed and crying tears of joy and wonder, then he suddenly stopped.
“Okay now you tell me about your Jesus my dear”.
She didn’t hesitate and went on at length where her husband had left off, until the whole congregation was cheering then she also suddenly stopped, quite out of breath.
Then together they shouted. “That is how you praise the Lord. You praise Him to others so they will see how, great, kind, loving etc. etc. you have really found Him to be. Then others will want to know Him too”
“Okay everyone, face the person next to you and request that they tell you about their Lord and Master. Remember you don’t know anything until you have experienced it. So make you descriptions of Jesus authentic. It has to be what, why and how you know Him. And don’t hesitate to shout or cry”
Well, what joyful, terrifying pandimonium it was. But they learned more about praising the Lord in that ½ hr than in many hours of sermons on the subject. And they put into practice these new skills partly because the next Sunday the young couple, with the pastors whole hearted agreement, checked by asking each one how they put it went. There were many wonderful stories and more to praise God to each other about. That young couple never appeared again. They didn’t really need to. The whole church was on fire and many people in the surrounding area came to know Jesus personally.
At that first service, the pastor had collected his notes and quietly gone to his office to pray, “Dear God, they are right. Forgive me for being so blind”.
Soon afterwards the church was so full it had to have 2 then 3 services each Sunday. Everyone was catching on. Instead of repetitiously singing or shouting “Praise the Lord” They were talking to each other in their backyards, loud enough for their neighbours to hear. “I suddenly realized just how beautiful God must be when I began to look at the flowers in our yard that He designed for us, with a magnifying glass. Take a look at this exquisite combination of colors and intricate symmetry”
“WOW, God is amazingly lovely and kind to us.” and she glanced over her shoulder to see her cynical neighbour stop his digging in order to hear them better.