Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully with a shout of joy.
Psalm 33:3

This past week, while on vacation with our two daughters and their six kids ages 2 – 7, has been, at times, an exercise in self-control and patience.  The cousins are having a ball as they run around the house (upstairs and down) yelling, screaming and laughing, expressing their joy together.  That’s not usually the noise level we, as adults, tolerate well. 

Though the four of us adults did have to settle them and quiet them down from time to time, at the same time I realize that we’re squelching some of the joy as they are expressing it.

As I think of what the Psalmist wrote about shouting for joy as we sing to Him a new song, I wonder how much we have squelched expressing our own joy as we worship the Lord. When we think of “shouting for joy” in the midst of worship…that probably makes us uncomfortable.  We tend to have a sense that worship, if truly honoring, should be quiet and respectfully – certainly no shouting and jumping around.

A number of years ago I went to a Promise Keepers event at which there was a lot of great artists leading the men in worship.  As I looked around, people were raising their hands, singing at the top of their voices and moving to the music.  I sang along with them…standing still with my hands at my sides, praising the Lord.  The person next to me leaned over and asked:  “Is that as excited as you get?”

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 65:13, The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing.

In biblical days, “shouting” was encouraged and practiced, mostly as a means of praise during times of worship or in moments of victory. In fact, Psalm 33:3 implies that singing and shouting with joy were often parallel activities.

What did this shouting sound like? Sometimes it was a combination of singing, weeping, and shouts of praise to God all at the same time (Ezra 3:10-13). When Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a colt, “the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices,” shouting out quotations from Psalms (Luke 19:37, NIV). In our day, no one has to tell a crowd of thousands to shout and cheer when their team scores points—shouting with joy is instinctive. If we shout for joy over temporal victories in life, how much more is God deserving of our shouts of joy in song and in word?

David Jeremiah writes: “Joy is the operative word—shouting and singing are just the means to the end of praise. Be bold in your worship! Sing and shout joyfully to God for His eternal victory.”