The Lord has made us to praise him. This is not to say that the Lord made us because he wanted to be praised. God is perfectly happy in the perfect union of the Trinity. He is not looking for compliments. The Lord made us to praise him because that is the most wonderful action that is possible. God could have made us so that our final happiness was found in something simpler. He could have made creatures who delighted in a full stomach and a good bed and nothing more. But a creature is only as great as their final destiny. It is only the dissatisfaction that we sense in the things of this earth that make us look toward heaven. All of the truly great accomplishments in art or music or literature are the result of this desire we have to praise God, even if the artist did not know why they were impelled to create something beautiful.
This desire to praise God is inside each one of us, and it is God’s own gift to us. Our soul cries out like an infant, unable to put its desire into words. We try to quiet it with pacifiers. There are many pacifiers in this world: food, alcohol, sex, entertainment. Sometimes the pacifier works for awhile, but then our soul begins crying out again. Some people try to keep up a variety of these pacifiers, switching whenever one has lost its power. Some people remain bored and unhappy as they continually go to the same pacifier looking for the satisfaction they have never found there.
We, however, know what our soul is crying out for. We want love, and not the imperfect love that any human being can give us. This too can be just another pacifier. We want the perfect love of God. Without a doubt, God does love us. He is love, and he created us. It is left for us to recognize his love. This recognition is praise. Boredom is a sign that we have not been praising God enough, that we have forgotten about the love of God. Every time we choose to answer boredom with one of the pacifiers of this world instead of by praising God, we make ourselves less than we should be. Whenever we do praise God, we are fulfilling our soul’s true desire.
