The Results of Praise

Psalm 67:5-7  May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.

Praising God brings positive results.

Psalm 67 is a rather short psalm, and it is all about praise.  In the passage I am focusing on today, the author is saying that if everyone praises God, then good things will happen.  The first thing is one that was very important to someone living in that time and place; the land yielding its harvest.  The people that most likely were reading this lived in what was called an agrarian society, meaning that the society was based on agriculture.  If their land didn't yield its harvest, then their future didn't look very bright.

I don't live in an agrarian society.  The closest thing to farmland around here is the community garden a few blocks away, but I can still identify with the thought.  I can look at harvest in a different way.  I can see that if we praise God then a spiritual harvest will be yielded.  I read somewhere that the greatest argument in favor of Christianity is a loving and lovable Christian.  If I am living in an atmosphere of praise, people can see that I have Christ in my heart, and will be drawn to Him.  On a personal level, I can see that if I am praising God my future will look brighter than before, and I can see God leading in ways I overlooked before.

Another result of praise is connected with the first, and that is that God will bless those who praise Him.  Most likely, some people believe that if they praise God that He owes them a blessing.  Few will actually come out and say that, but many act as though they do.  Praising God is not some magic spell that automatically gives us what we want.  In fact, sometimes the only blessing I would receive from praising God is the praise itself.  As I previously mentioned, praise makes the future look brighter.

Now the final result is somewhat of a paradox, that is a self-contradictory statement, because it states that a result of praise is fear.  Notice that it doesn't say that we praise God because we fear Him, rather that all the ends of the earth will fear Him.  Now fear in the Bible is somewhat of a complicated concept (or maybe we've just made it complicated).  As I mentioned in yesterday's post, words can have additional meanings, this doesn't diminish the original meaning, it simply adds to it.  Now the word translated "fear" in this text is defined, "to fear, revere, be afraid."  If all the ends of the earth fear God, it covers a variety of responses.  If the people are evil, well, then they have reason to be afraid of God because He will be coming after them.  If the people are seeking after Him then they will revere Him, that is, they will regard Him as worthy of great honor. So the way we see fear is simply based on what direction we're viewing God.

So basically, if I am praising God, a lot of good things will happen, and they can happen for you as well.