Bassic Praise

 September 6, 2023

Wednesday mornings, I get up early, fix breakfast for two of my pastor friends before adjourning to our back room for prayer, always beginning with a psalm. Today we finally reached the last psalm, so now we have to decide whether to start over with the psalms, or begin our prayers with some other Scripture. Either way, it’s good to have our prayers informed by the Scriptures.

Psalm 150 is a rarity. It is nothing but praise. Many psalms combine praise and petition, some are laments, but this one enjoins all Creation to join in praise of the LORD. It’s not long, so here it is in its entirety:

“Praise the Lord! 

Praise God in His sanctuary; 

Praise Him in His mighty firmament! 

Praise Him for His mighty acts;

Praise Him according to His excellent greatness! 

Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet; 

Praise Him with the lute and harp! 

Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; 

Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes! 

Praise Him with loud cymbals; 

Praise Him with clashing cymbals! 

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. 

Praise the Lord!”

Psalm 150:1-6 

One of the things I like about this psalm is how it gives various ways we can praise God. Sometimes repeated verbalizations of praise seem to me a bit stilted and forced. I like to hear people in the congregation offer their various praises to God; hearing praise from other lips helps me in my own worship. But what catches my heart here is the instrumental praise. 

I can’t sing and play bass. I can strum the guitar and sing, but there’s something about playing the bass that requires my full attention. Even then, I often wonder where we are in the song. Fortunately, most of the time, people don’t seem to notice. So on those Sunday mornings when I have the privilege of playing my bass for worship, I can’t use my voice to offer my praises. On these Sundays, I tell people, “I praise God through my fingers.” It’s true! My bass is a stringed instrument, and when I play on Sundays, my fingers do the praising; imperfectly, but no more so than on those other Sundays when I sing.

I LOVE this instrument! And I love using it as an instrument of praise, because for me, that’s exactly what it is.