Nobody likes that guy who expects to be praised by others, who's bearing and attitude  proudly suggests that people should stop and applaud their every accomplishment, great or small. That person who demands the approval of people, the man with the entourage of puppets to give assurance of his success.

I've found myself in the past years looking with disdain on that category of personalities. And it wasn't until just this past week that I realized how my abhorrence for this character was not limited to just the people I saw around me. Subconsciously, altho never realizing it or admitting it to myself when I did, that I sometimes viewed God that way. All throughout Scripture you see our Lord commanding us to praise Him. Worship in the morning, the afternoon, evening...If He is such a humble God, why does He demand that all the world fall down and worship Him? Yes, I could see He deserves it, yet it's hard to give what is constantly demanded of you.

I know I'm not the only one who has thought that before, altho few would admit it, since the very thought is such a sacrilegious affair, and no good Christian should think such a thought, let alone voice it. Yet even C.S.Lewis admits to such doubts. And it was through reading what this man's journey to understanding of this that also answered the question for myself.

And now, I see why. As C.S.Lewis puts it, "it is in the process of being worshipped that God communicated His presence to men." As I read that the first time, I immediately knew the truth of the statement, because I had seen it firsthand in my own life. As I have come before the Lord day by day over the past few years growing deeper in my walk and have taken deliberate time to praise the Lord, His presence has become so marvelously sweet to me. King David was the very "man after God's own heart," and what is he most known for? His psalms of praise to the Lord. He WAS the man after God's own heart because God had communicated Himself to King David through his passionate worship of his King.

God's command to praise and worship Him is not the demands of an egotistical dictator, but of a gentle God who longs to make His presence known in the intimacy of praise.