Twenty minutes of praise: a song list and nothing else
Praise is often reduced to a song or two, among other things: a hymn before the meal, a chorus in the car. Twenty minutes of praise with nothing else is a different experience. Time stretches, the heart relaxes, thoughts settle. This weekly quest invites you to try it.
What it looks like in your day
Prepare the list. Before starting, prepare a playlist of songs you know and love. Twenty minutes is about four or five songs. Avoid having to search along the way: you would lose your concentration.
Choose the place and cut the distractions. A quiet room, headphones or a speaker, the phone in airplane mode. Do nothing else: no housework, no screens.
Follow three movements.
- Enter (five minutes). One or two calm songs, to settle. Simply say: “Lord, I'm here for you.”
- Rise (ten minutes). More uplifting songs, with which you can sing louder, lift your hands, walk, dance if you wish. The body takes part.
- Settle (five minutes). A gentle song, then a silence. Stay a few moments in God's presence.
Sing with attention. Think about what you are saying. If a sentence catches you, repeat it.
Stay free. If a song touches you and you want to go back to it, do so. If the desire to pray in your own words comes, let it come.
End with a thank-you.
If you don't sing easily, you can accompany the list by reading along, murmuring, or simply listening with your heart. If you are short on time, fifteen minutes are enough. If you are shy, do it alone, at home.
What the Bible says
The last psalm is a call to total praise:
“Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. 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 psaltery and harp. Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.”
“Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord”: praise is for everyone, with every means: strings, flutes, cymbals, dance. It is not reserved for a particular moment or category of people. Psalm 22 says that God inhabits the praises of Israel:
“But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.”
Praise is like a throne: a place where you make room for his presence. And the author of the letter to the Hebrews speaks of a “sacrifice of praise” that we offer continually (Hebrews 13:15). In the book of Chronicles, an army is preceded by singers who praise the Lord before the battle (2 Chronicles 20:21-22).
Pitfalls to avoid
Getting distracted by the technology. Looking for a track, adjusting the sound, tweaking: all of this interrupts the praise. Prepare everything in advance.
Singing without thinking. Twenty minutes can become an empty routine. Come back to the words, to the meaning.
Trying to feel. There will be days when you feel nothing. Praise is no less true for that.
Turning the exercise into a performance. You are not in concert: you are before God. Your voice doesn't matter.
Forgetting the rest of your day. Authentic praise is extended by a life that expresses it: service, kindness, truth.
This week, prepare a list of songs. Set aside twenty minutes and do nothing but praise God.