Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth in
song, rejoice, and sing praises. Psalm 98:4
The psalmists had an advantage in praise because of their
closer tie to the natural world. David began life outdoors as a shepherd, then
spent years hiding in the rocky terrain of Israel. Not surprisingly, a great
love, even reverence, for the natural world shines through many of his poems.
The psalms present a world that fits together as a whole, with everything upheld
by a personal God watching over it.
Wilderness announces to our senses the splendor of an
invisible, untamable God. How can we not offer praise to the One who dreamed up
porcupines and elk, who splashed bright-green aspen trees across hillsides of
gray rock, who transforms the same landscape into a work of art with every
blizzard?
The world, in the psalmist’s imagination, cannot contain the
delight God inspires. “Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth
in song, rejoice, and sing praises” (Ps. 98:4). Nature itself joins in: “Let
the rivers clap their hands; let the hills be joyful together before the Lord”
(v.8).
The psalms wonderfully solve the problem of a
praise-deficient culture by providing the necessary words. We merely need to
enter into those words, letting God use the psalms to realign our inner
attitudes.