Anything Considered

But the most obvious fact about praise - whether of God or anything - strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise - lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game - praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the sme time most balanced and capricious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least...

I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: "Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?" The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly enyding to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.

C.S. LEWIS, Reflections on the Psalms

There's been this verse (and others like it) that I've always used but never understood very well. "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 63:1). Somehow it tends to be about the desires of my heart rather than delight in the Lord, almost as if to say that by attaining the desires of my heart, I would be delighted.

I've only just realised over the past few days that God is the true, absolute joy, and that my heart can only be satisfied in him. "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for thee, O God, for the living God" (Psalm 42:1-2). There is so much that God can give us. His grace overwhelms. But more than that, beyond what material things He can bless us with, is Him. God is the capstone. The foundation of worship. The all-satisfying object. "Taste and see that the LORD is good!" (Psalm 34:8).

Worship is at its simplest level adoration, and we only adore what delights us. Worshipping or praising something we have no pleasure in is hypocritical. So yes, while we do want to deny ourselves to follow Him, we do not detach ourselves from the pleasure of knowing Him. The purpose of God wanting us to draw near to Him is so that we may find joy in His glory. And this, consummate joy, will be greater than any satisfaction we will ever know.