I love psalm 8, it extols the glory of God, especially in creation. When I was reading it the other day verse 2 caught my attention:

“Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, because of Your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the avenger.”

Then I remembered that Jesus quoted this verse in Matt 21:16, except He changed one of the words; He used “praise” instead of “strength”. So, according to what Jesus said, if we praise God with childlike praise our enemies will be silenced. In other words when we are going through trials and difficult times in our lives praise is a powerful form of spiritual warfare. (Incidentally, have you ever seen children praising the Lord? They do it with all their hearts, not wondering about what their friends are thinking.)

We actually see an example of this in the New Testament when Paul and Silas were in prison with their feet in the stocks and they were praying and singing hymns to God (Acts 16:25-26). I’m sure most of you know what happened – a mighty earthquake caused all of the prison doors to be opened up and chains came off! Praising God in the middle of adversity is not an easy thing to do but we do it because we know that God is in control and: “All things work together for good to those who love God (Rom 8:28 NKJV).