How do I praise God?

I have come to the end of the Book of Psalms. I am sad to leave it. Some people make it a discipline to read a Psalm every day. As I can barely keep up with my daily reading in order to read through the entire Bible in a year, I would likely have difficulties making another commitment.

The last chapter in the Book of Psalms is Psalm 150:

Praise the Lord.

1 Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
    praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
    praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
    praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
    praise him with resounding cymbals.

6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

It is clear the emphasis of this chapter is about praising God. Verse one tells us where to praise him. Verse 2 says what we praise him for. Verse 3-5 gives the how - and musical instruments and dancing are certainly involved. Verse 6 tells us who should praise God - "Everything that has breath" - that means I am included! Obviously we all have different temperaments and our "method" to praise God may look a bit different. This book "Sacred Pathways" is a very nice resource to discover my own pathway to worship God and to learn to appreciate how others may praise God differently.

The word praise appeared in 363 verses in the bible, some of which it appears multiple times, e.g. it appears 3 times in Ps 148:1. More than half the appearances are found in the Book of Psalms. So praising God is clearly an important thing to do in my life.

This wikihow resource outlines 11 steps in a prayerful/meditative approach to praise God. Some of them are listed here with my own comments/favourite scripture verses added:

• Practice his presence and his working in my life - God is here with me; God has done great things in my life; he holds my life in his hand. (Deut 31:6, Ps 23, Ps 103:1-10, Ps 121, Is 41:10, Heb 13:5)
• Think of Jesus' life - recounts the stories of the gospels - his birth, miracles, sermon on the mount, his death on the cross, his resurrection, where he is now and that he is praying on my behalf etc.
• Start naming the attributes of God - He is El Shaddai (God Almighty), Jehovah jireh (God will provide), He is Elohim (God of gods); He is omnipresent (Ps 139:7-12).
• Thank him - say it out audibly! Every time you are aware of a thanksgiving item - say Praise God!
• Use his creation to help me praise him - it maybe the breeze that hits my face while cycling; the natural beauty of everything around me; don't forget the thunders and lightnings - he is talking to me!
• Do something for others as a praise to God - Jesus said: 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Mt 25:40)

That's it. I shall try to practice this for the rest of my life!