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"Praise the Lord!"
(Psalm 150:1a, ESV)
Having been in Junior High ministry (grades 7 and 8) for almost five years now, I have a running theory which I like to call "the Brain Break". The Brain Break is something I live by when I am teaching a lesson to Junior High students. It is a time I give the students to let their brains have a break from thinking and working. It looks like this: As I deliver a message to the students, instead of trying to talk at them for twenty to thirty minutes straight, every five to seven minutes, I mix in an object lesson, a game, or something else fun and interesting that doesn't feel like work and helps their brains re-engage. It is an opportunity for all their built-up energy and movement to squirm out of their bodies so they can focus again.
The Brain Break gets them out of the funk of boredom and gets them to re-engage their minds into what is going on around them, which is, in my context, teaching from God's Word. As I was thinking about this idea of "fix your thoughts", an idea that is similar in structure to the Brain Break hit me. What about a "Praise Break"? Now, I know some of you are thinking this sounds cheesy, but just go with me!
I know in my own life, I can let the checklists, distractions, and general busyness of life get me down in a funk. It's easy for many hours to slip by almost unnoticed because of the hustle and bustle of work and everything else constantly competing for our attention. At the end of jam-packed days like that, I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to intentionally stop and invite Jesus into those busy moments and to have an eternal perspective throughout the day. That's where this idea of a PRAISE BREAK was birthed!
What if we all had alarms set on our phones as reminders to take a Praise Break at least once every day? What if we intentionally interrupted our tasks and to-dos with Praise Breaks? What if we stopped letting the hours fly by without setting our thoughts on Jesus?
Now, what is a Praise Break, exactly? A Praise Break is a moment where you intentionally take your thoughts off of what is going on around you and set them on Jesus! I think a Praise Break can look different for different people (like stopping everything to pray for a minute, or reading a short devotional), but for me, it usually looks like jamming out and singing along to worship music!
Worship music gets my thoughts off of me and my circumstances and allows me to give glory and praise to the One who has saved my soul! It disrupts the mundane monotony of life and interjects Jesus into the equation. When I am listening to worship music, my thoughts are immediately fixed on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and worthy of praise, because my thoughts are on Jesus! When I feel like life has taken me to the edge of my patience and my energy is out for the day, I need something to get the negativity out of the equation, and for me, a Praise Break changes what my thoughts are on and allows me to focus on the Author and Perfecter of my faith: Jesus!
How will you take a Praise Break today?
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