Hallelujah

In Sunday school last week, the teacher asked us to share when we had experienced great joy. The room was silent. Interesting, this is not a group that hasn't experienced joy, I'm sure. There is happiness here, but we all had trouble vocalizing it.

Then, this morning, in the concluding chapter of Peterson's book, Psalms: Prayers of the Heart, he writes about Psalm 150, "In Hebrew the first and last word of this prayer is hallelujah ("praise the Lord"). To what extent is your life bracketed by this word?

So that's the question I bring to you today. How is your life bracketed by the praise of God? Do you begin and end with Hallelujah? 

In the depth and details of each day, I think we lose our ability to see the joy and to find the presence of God. In my bullet journal, I have a spread called Gratitude. Each day I fill two lines of the book with what I am grateful for that day. Sometimes it takes a moment for me to find it - it's not that the joy isn't there - it's that I have to remember to look for it. I'm grateful for the practice of gratitude because it opens my eyes to joy.

Try it for a week and see if you see more joy - see if your days can end on an Hallelujah.