how to change your focal length: part 5

"Yet you are holy, O you who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel." - Psalm 22:3

I was at the opticians the other day. I've been having trouble with my eyes for a week or so and I wanted to get it checked out.

As is often the way with these things, the optometrest had to switch on the lights and leave the room with my notes. He excused himself very nicely and professionally, and for a few moments I was left to panic on my own in the consulting room.

What a time to put some of this into practice! I stared at a wall of differently-sized letters and softly began to sing, just quietly to God.

There is something about singing that changes the atmosphere - especially when it's from the heart and straight to God. Not every song we sing has to be a brilliant anthem we can't wait to teach the church, or record and put on a trendy album! Some of the best songs are just between us and God, born into life from the secret place, and sung in situe to the Audience of One.

I sang for a few minutes in the room, eyes open, you know, just in case the optometrist came back.

Singing praise is an ancient and wonderful way to change your focal length. The word for praise here is 'tehilla' - to sing, to exalt in voice, to raise a hymn.

In Psalm 22, it's tehilla praise that makes a dwelling place for God. He is enthroned on praise - as though it could somehow serve as a platform for the throne of heaven itself! Think about that - the throne room is built upon the act of sacrifical praise.

That means that when we gather together to lift our voices, what we're doing is establishing a landing strip, a temple, a dwelling place for God himself to come and 'inhabit' our praises.

What's more, we ourselves as believers are also his dwelling place. He dwells in us when we live in atmosphere of praise. The more I think about that, the more amazed I become!

And it's thinking things like that that makes me sing in the optometrist's consulting room.

Tehilla praise changes our focal length by changing the atmosphere. It brings heaven directly into a situation, rushing in like a wind, crashing in like a river. Praise changes everything. And (if you think back to how lenses work) once the atmosphere changes, the way that light refracts through it has to change too! The air around you has a refractive index.

So, this week's challenge: if you think of it, or if you're facing a situation that you need to see change, just find a space and start singing to God. Tehilla isn't necessary loud like halal, or visible like barak or yadah - it can be soft and it can be powerful.

Tip: if you're stuck for ways to get spontaneously singing, start by singing over an interval of a fifth (think of the first two notes of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) and go from there.

-

PS: When I got back from the optometrist appointment, I opened an email from Joanna with a link to a Bill Johnson message. You can see it here - he says it so much better than me, and in a lot more depth. Well, he's Bill Johnson, isn't he?

Oh, and if God is going to help change a focal length, I can't honestly think of anywhere better for him to remind me how to do that than in the consulting room at the opticians.

how to change your focal length: part 4

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. - Psalm 95:6

Time for a quick recap. In this series, we're looking at how different types of praise can help to change our focal length, so that we're focused more on Heaven, rather than ourselves. We've already seen that 'halal' praise encourages us to be loud and visible, and that 'yadah' was all about casting up our hands and being vulnerable in battle.

The next Hebrew word for praise is 'barak' and it gets right to the heart of the idea of refocusing, of realigning, and of changing position.

Barak means 'to kneel'.

Like yadah, barak is a physical action, a posture; it helps us to refocus because it's all about our position.

Lenses work because of positioning. One thing is a certain distance (the focal length) from another, and the light refracts to a point where it can be processed. A lens only works when everything is in the right place.

Similarly, to help us change our focus, it's important to understand our worship-position in relation to the Father. And kneeling is a great demonstration of this, because it shows how to be aligned, it reveals the power-balance, and it quickly deals with pride. It's a fantastic physical display of humility and vulnerability, just as a servant shows a master, a subject shows a king, or a man shows a woman he would like to marry.

I think sometimes pride subtly tries to shift the focus back to ourselves, and we have to spot it and re-position. It's hard though, kneeling: it's the position of someone who risks execution, or banishment, or rejection. It's the handing over of power, control and authority and submitting ourselves to something much greater.

It's good though - because God loves the heart that kneels. And this form of praise really does display to the world how the balance works when we're aligned with him!

So, this week's challenge: You might not be physically able to kneel, but that's okay - it's a heart-attitude. See if you can figure out ways to train your heart to kneel, during your worship times. If you can kneel, the physical action says a lot too, so why not give it a go? It's possible that your brain will try to persuade you that you don't want to (especially now that I've suggested it). Well, override it! See what happens when you collapse your pride and submit yourself to God. Let your body display your heart, and show the world how to bring praise to him, on your knees. 

how to change your focal length: part 3

"After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever." - 2 Chronicles 20:21

It was early. The morning sun lit the top of the rocks of Tekoa, and cast long shadows behind the horses. The air was cool and fresh, almost electric with anticipation. This was the moment of battle, of decision. This was the moment in which the words of Jehaziel, the Kohathites, the Korahites, even those of the great King, Jehoshaphat himself, would either come to nothing, or everything.

The king, glittering in armour at the front of the procession halted and raised a banner, fluttering in the dawn.

"Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem!" he cried, "Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld! Have faith in his prophets, and you will be successful!"

A nervous roar went up. The desert shook with feet and the handful of men marched forwards through the shaded rocks, into the sun. There, like a cloud of dust, far away on the other side of the plain were the massed armies of Moab and Ammon: countless thousands across the horizon, swords glinting, a swarm of men, ready to wipe their enemies from the earth.

What would your military strategy be? Hopelessly outnumbered, resting on just a few short lines of nice-sounding-hope from a prophet and a couple of priests, perhaps given heart (but not much else) by the king's speech, as ludicrous as it might have sounded, given the circumstances? What would you do?

If ever you needed to see beyond what you can see, it would be here. In these posts we're looking at how to change our 'focal length' using different aspects of praise: to see further, to re-shift how we see the world beyond our situations and circumstances. And this story, in 2 Chronicles 20 shows us again how 'praise' can help us do that.

Jehoshaphat's strategy is to appoint some singers.

Their job was to go out on the front lines, ahead of the actual armed men, and just 'praise'. You'd be forgiven for thinking that that is mad - it kind of is, especially when you see that the word used here is the word 'yadah'.

Where 'halal' was about boasting and shining, 'yadah' is much more physical. It comes from the idea of 'throwing' or 'casting' and it often indicates the idea of 'raised hands'. It's like literally throwing your hands in the air, like you just don't care. It's wild, exuberant, reckless praise.

Not exactly great against a massive army with lots of arrows, making yourself as obvious as possible. But you can read what happened in the rest of the chapter.

Yadah shows us that praise is also about the physical movement of releasing something to God, making ourselves vulnerable, and throwing, casting, opening our hands towards him. If ever you wondered where that crazy charismatic thing comes from - this'll be it: it's totally scriptural! It's warfare. Another sense of Yadah is used when the Bible talks about shooting arrows, or launching a spear. It's that feeling when every sinew in your arms is stretching towards Heaven.

So here's the Yadah challenge. Next time you're in a situation which feels hopeless, or has you feeling as though you're completely outnumbered, find a way to get moving. Find a space, find a place, find a way to literally throw your arms into the air and 'praise him for his holiness'. I reckon this is another key way to help us change our focus, to remove our eyes from the problem we face (and even the lack of any obvious solution) and to completely focus on God himself. Yadah sharpens the mind and makes it less and less about the here and the now, and more and more about Him. Give it a try!

It takes effort, energy and determination. It also takes vulnerability to do it, to be at the front of the line when the enemy attacks. At first it will feel unnatural, odd, maybe foolish. But have a read of 2 Chronicles 20 and see what happened. Yadah refocuses the eyes to remind us of the message that 'the battle' always 'belongs to the Lord'. 

how to change your focal length: part 2

“Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live.” Psalm 63:3-4

In this series, we’re looking at different aspects of ‘praise’ and how each one helps us to change our focal length. We all have a natural inclination to be focused on the things around us, on the things we see and think about - and sometimes, this isn’t the best. If, as worshippers, we can learn how to focus less on ourselves and more on the object of our worship, we can change the world. But how to do that isn’t always obvious.

I believe that praise is a key, and that’s what these next few posts are about. But what do we mean by ‘praise’? What does the Bible call praise? Are there any tips that might help us practically start to live lives with a clearer focus? How can praise help us to do this?

There are a few words for praise: there’s one that’s used 140 times in the Old Testament, and it’s a cracker: it’s the word ‘halal’.

Not the meat. That’s from an Arabic word meaning ‘lawful’ which is now used to describe food that’s fit for Muslims to eat. This halal is a Hebrew word that means: to boast, to rave, to shine, or, indeed, to act crazy.

I think the point of ‘halal’ is that praise is supposed to be loud and it’s supposed to be visible. It’s the same kind of word you’d use to describe that cheer you do without thinking when your team score, or you get a promotion, or you accidentally win the lottery. It’s a natural, reflex response to something incredible, and it can’t be stopped.

You can see that in Psalm 63. Halal erupts in response to God. There’s a reason, there’s a cause, there’s a truth to what’s happened and I am not going to stop shouting about it!

Halal also means to shine. In Philippians, Paul instructs the church to ‘do everything without complaining or arguing’ and specifically says that the result is that we will ‘shine like stars in the universe, as we hold out the word of truth’. He knows that there’s a direct connection between our character and our ability to shine. Complaining, arguing, grumbling... seems to be a quick way to flicker out from a brilliant example, into a lacklustre Christian. So stop it. Halal instead!

Praise is meant to shine. It’s intended to tell the loudest and best of who God is, the most of what he’s done, to speak the highest good into a situation, like a light that switches on in the dark. It’s powerful, it’s illuminating, it’s brilliant.

Here’s the challenge then. Next time you get an opportunity, tell a story about what God has done for you. It could be a ‘testimony’ in church, or it could just be a facebook status. But try boasting, going over the top about what God did! Let it shine! Tell the world who he is and and how much he showed his love to you! Really go for it. Make it burst out from inside of you like a ‘halal’ should.

If you find that difficult, try writing it down first. Make it a ‘halaletter’. One thing I do sometimes (I like writing) is to write out a good story about what God did, and then go back and circle the number of times I mentioned myself and then the number of times I mentioned him. I find that a really interesting challenge, and it usually tells me something about where my focal length is. The point is that doing this, slowly rearranges the way we think about what God has done, and ultimately prompts that spontaneous burst of joy and praise, the next time we see it.

Halal can change your focus because it is a natural, uncontrolled, outrageous response to God. Let it go. Let it out. Let it shine!