Praise the Lord! Christians love to do that. They have praise and worship services. They sometimes get excited and shout out “Praise the Lord.” They tell other Christians to do it, and advise that it is a proper response to good things happening in your life. They also say it is the proper response when bad things happen. When bad things happen, they will say, “Well praise the Lord anyway.”

Have you ever thought about just what praise means to most Christians. I googled it, and here’s some of what I found. Praise is the joyful thanking and adoring of God, the celebration of His goodness and grace. Praise is the joyful recounting of all God has done for us. It is closely intertwined with thanksgiving. Praise is to “to fall down before” or “bow down before” God.

I do not have a problem with any of these definitions, but as I read the Song of Deborah I discovered another definition of praise. In verse two the word that is translated “praise” is literally the same word that is used to say, “to bless.” So it would be correct to say that to “praise the Lord” is also to “bless the Lord.” We do not often think about our being able to bless the Lord. We are more familiar with the concept of God blessing us. When we look at the words in Hebrew and Greek that are translated “to bless” we find they are often also translated “to make happy.” We all understand as Christians that much of what God does is done to make us happy. He blesses us so that we might be a blessing to others. According to this verse, our relationship with God is not one-sided. We have the opportunity to do things that make God happy.

When church leaders take the lead, and the people in the congregations willingly follow, and they all offer themselves to do battle against evil in the world, it makes God happy. That is true praise.