Fair-Weather Praise

By Ken Canedo

Fair-weather fans root for a team only when they are winning. Baseball blowout, with the home team ahead 14 to 0? Yay, team! But if this same team slides into the losing column for the rest of the season? Yawn. I'm outta here!

Sometimes people treat God that way. Are things going well? Are you getting good grades? Do you have lots of friends? Praise God! I could sing of your love forever!

But when life gets tough and things go sour, where is the praise? Did you lose your job? Are you breaking up with a girlfriend or boyfriend? Has tragedy raised its ugly head? It's hard to praise God under such circumstances. We might feel tempted to cry out with the author of the Psalms, "How long, O Lord?"

There are many praise psalms in the Hebrew Scriptures. But even the psalms of lament end in praise. For example, Jesus famously prayed Psalm 22 as he hung from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Most people think of that as the ultimate lamentation, but if you read the whole psalm it ends with "I will praise your name, O Lord, in the midst of the people . . ."

The popular song Blessed Be Your Name expresses this well. The next time you sing or hear this song, pay close attention to the words that Matt and Beth Redman composed.

Blessed be your name
when the sun's shining down on me,
when the world's all as it should be,
blessed be your name.

Blessed be your name
on the road marked with suffering,
though there's pain in the offering,
blessed be your name

God is good! But fair-weather praise does not show much trust on our part. Praise God for the dark times! Somehow, God will see us though.