Always, GOD!

From a friend's email tag line ...

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.

(slightly edited, I can't help myself.)

Happy moments, THANK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.

Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.

Every moment, PRAISE GOD.

Psalm 22:22

I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the congregation I will praise you.

Etymological Notes

From these etymologies, we see that "praising" God, or "prizing" God, is always appropriate, because his worth and value is inestimable.

Praise \Praise\, n.
[OE. preis, OF. preis price, worth, value, estimation. See {Praise}, v., {Price}.]

Prize \Prize\ (pr[imac]z), n.
[F. prise a seizing, hold, grasp, fr. pris, p. p. of prendre to take, L. prendere, prehendere; in some senses, as 2 (b), either from, or influenced by, F. prix price. See {Prison}, {Prehensile}, and cf. {Pry}, and also {Price}.]

Stalking Joy

Also found in one of his books ...

The words of Flannery O'Connor are my words too. She said in a letter to a friend,

"Picture me with my ground teeth stalking joy -- fully armed, too, because it is a highly dangerous quest" (The Art of Being, p. 126).

Or consider Jonathan Edwards, a man after my own heart. When he was in college in the early 1700's, he wrote 70 resolutions. Number 22 was this: "Resolved, To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of." Now really, Jonathan! Violence? Surely, you have gone too far. And Jonathan responds, I only go as far as Jesus. Don't you recall His words? "If your hand causes you to sin cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43-48). Make the joy of life in the Kingdom of God your aim. And if you have to cut off your hand and foot and gouge out your eye in order to gain that happiness, do it! A Christian Hedonist is a person devoted to maximizing his own happiness and who has learned how to do it from the Bible.


http://www.soundofgrace.com/piper80/092880m.htm

September 28, 1980 (Morning)
Bethlehem Baptist Church
John Piper, Pastor

IT'S MY PLEASURE!
Humility and Christian Hedonism