When we praise God....

Have you ever noticed that people tend to throw out the phrase "Praise God" pretty regularly?  It's often a sigh of relief when they hear some good news from somebody, or an exclamation at the end of a story about how something really great happened to them.  It's the everyday-life version of the sports superstar pointing to heaven after doing something amazing, as if to minimize all the hard work and involvement he or she had in it.

We use it in big things as well as in small things: "My spouse got a job finally, praise God!" or "I found a parking spot, praise God!"  I'll be the first to say that God cares about the little things every bit as much as he cares about the big things, but I'm a bit troubled by this phrase.  Not, of course, because I don't think God deserves credit for doing good things.  It's more because I think we're shortchanging God when we do it.

Our praise of God shouldn't have any connection to things that happen to us.  If we claim to love God and worship Him, then He is the Lord over every moment of our lives, regardless of what we're doing.  So we should be praising Him whether we are celebrating a good thing or sitting and watching TV.  We should be praising Him whether we're in church or peeling potatoes.  Our acknowledgement of God's involvement in our lives is completely independent of our circumstances.

But there's something even a bit more sinister at play when we throw out a "Praise God" or a "Thank God" after good news.  If we praise God for good things that happen, then by implication we're not praising Him for things that we perceive as bad.  When a friend has been struggling through unemployment for months and finally gets a job, we act as though God finally came through, when He never stopped being involved.

God isn't a god who only gives us things that are "good."  He hasn't failed when things don't turn out nicely.  We aren't meant to struggle through the hard times and party when times are good.  We're meant to seek God in all things, praise Him in all times, and press onward steadily whether we feel like it or not.  It's better to take the bad with the good than to ride the roller coaster of success and failure.  It's better to tread onward than to alternate sprints and falls.

There's nothing wrong than saying "Praise God" when good things happen.  But if we can't say it when bad things happen, then we're subtly missing what God is looking for in praise.