Psalm 150

Praise the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.

Since the early 1900’s, there have been numerous studies done in an attempt to quantify the creative capability of the human mind  in order to estimate how much of that capability we use. The earliest studies put the average use at 10% of our capability. Then as we’ve learned more about the brain, that number has progressively gone down, first to 6% then 5 then 3 then 1.5. Not because we’ve concluded that people are less creative than we originally thought, but because our understanding of the brain’s capability has grown.  Finally the UCLA Brain research Institute put an end to things a few years ago by stating that, “For all practical purposes the creative capability of the human mind is infinite.”

It’s been said that if we “put our minds to it” we could become fluent in dozens of languages, master countless skills, and memorize for instant recall all the information in the US Library of Congress. (I can’t imagine even wanting to do that one.)

That said, research has also uncovered one limitation. At the conscious level, we can only think one thought at a time. Some of us think we’re good at doing two things at once, but if we are it means we’ve mastered the ability to switch our focus from one to the other and back again very quickly. Still, at any given instant we’re only thinking about one of them.

And that explains why Paul advised us to rejoice even in times of trouble, and to concentrate our thinking on praiseworthy things. (Phil 4:4,8) Somehow he knew that if we did this it would prevent us from falling into a state of despair over our problems.

Jim and Shirley, a couple of our regular readers, once put it this way .

“Praise in the mouth of God’s saints will bind the enemy with cords of iron. One who is praising God cannot be thinking thoughts of fear or doubt. Praise is a STRONG weapon and we pray that each person who calls HIM Father discovers that praise raises us above our circumstance where we can soar above any storm! ” Well said.

When we focus all of our conscious effort on praising God, any conflicting thoughts are literally forced out of our minds. Practice this by singing along with your favorite praise music, or by learning to praise Him in prayer, and you’ll find renewed strength even in the midst of troubling times. It’s a way of taking your mind back from your enemy and restoring your perspective. Resist him, we’re told, and he’ll flee from us, (James 4:7) driven away by our persistent prayers of praise. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.