Praise God

When I first got to Franciscan University as an 18 year old, all those 16 1/2 years ago, my experience of praising God was seriously lacking. I thought of praising the Lord as the experiences I had in the silence of my heart, perhaps reading something spiritually deep, and especially the time spent before the Eucharist in adoration. However, I don't think I actually praised God...I adored him in word, but I didn't praise Him with my heart, soul, and being. Don't get me wrong, I had some deep spiritual experiences in our community of faith, but I never felt the deep experience of praising God until somewhere in my time at Steubenville. I can't pin down a when things shifted, but I can tell you that as I opened my heart in praise, calling out to the God of the universe in humility and desire for our Lord, something changed. I wanted to praise Him. I didn't just want to know about faith in Him, there was a desire to sing out his praises. And that desire continues.

As a dad, I don't get a lot of time to just sit back and listen to worship music as I'm doing now, sitting in my basement with Matt Maher streaming through my sweet surround sound system. But I have a posse of children who beg me, every time we get in the car, to turn on "The Fish", the local Christian radio station. Hearing them sing along to the worship songs is heavenly. It just about brings tears to my eyes to hear my almost-11-year-old sing "Lord I need You" with her lovely voice. It brings me joy because I want my kids to need the Lord. I want them to know that they can't make it on their own. And, if they do "make it" without Him, there is no real success there. I want them to know that a successful life can be summed up with one simple question: Did you live the life of a saint?

I pray that they will live like saints. Not that they will be perfect, because (with the exception of Mary) no saint was or will be perfect. But, I pray they seek the Lord and never stop seeking Him. I pray that, just like the saints, they seek to praise Him in the low moments, the high moments, the boring moments, and the moments of joy. I pray they desire God, they know they need Him, and they want to be with Him in glory. And if they're like their dad, praising Him will often take the form of singing along, however imperfectly, with the worship songs we love. So praise you God, and "teach my song to rise to You..."

Is that an echo?

Do you know what an echo chamber is? According to Wikipedia, it's "a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a defined system." Essentially, it's the definition of what many of us do a lot of the time...we have a thought, belief, or idea that we set out to prove to ourselves. While this term is being overused right now in talking about the whole "fake news" drama the news establishment is hyperventilating over, it's a worthwhile endeavor to explore where we may enter echo chambers in our own lives, rather than seeking the truth for itself.

I think we seek things that reinforce our current beliefs in almost every area. Whether it's politics, health, religion, economics, etc, how many of us really look at opposing views or sources with an open (if reasonably critical) mind? Think of a friend or family member with an opposing viewpoint on something...maybe you're a Democrat and they're a Republican, or vice versa. Do you engage them in conversation with an impression of what they're thinking? Perhaps you see conversation with them as boring, tiresome, frustrating, etc...just wasted time listening to regurgitated drivel from MSNBC or Fox News? Take, if you will, a moment to reflect on your own tendencies. Do you seek to understand why some people disagree with you? Can you find merit in any ideas of someone that you disagree with? Perhaps you think that you've got the world figured out, but it never hurts to think about how the other (and I did the math on this) 99.99999999985714286% of people in the world (that's everyone in the world except for you) think about the world. Try some other thoughts on for size...I can guarantee the process doesn't hurt and you may come out better for it.