This morning I had an early appointment. When I was half way to my destination, I had a fresh thought drift across my mind. I say fresh thought because I wasn’t thinking about anything but driving safely on the frozen road, meeting with other writers at my friend’s bakery and a list of things I needed to do. Then suddenly, I was thinking about the sound of cheering. I imagined a crowd yelling, whistling, and clapping with exuberant expressions of excitement, and something deep within me stirred.

A while back, the Lord encouraged me to practice praising Him. I thought, “Sure, how hard can that be?” I declared how awesome and worthy of praise He was, and then that was it. I had nothing else to say. The first time I tried, I could only praise Him one minute, but the more I practiced, the more praise was stirred up and the words flowed from my mouth and my heart for longer periods of time. So when this concept of cheering came into my mind, I thought it may be the same as my time spent practicing praise. But it wasn’t the same. The concept of cheering came back to me, and since it’s football season, I thought, why not just yell? No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I heard myself shout out, “Woo Hoo!”, at the top of my lungs! I was amused, this struck a match of joy in my spirit and a new spark was lit. I felt a shift within me. And just for good measure, I did it again!

My husband, Lee Gaupp, is an avid New Orleans Saints fan and has been watching the football games. When he watches, it gets really loud! It isn’t the volume of the game that is loud, it’s his reaction to it. I’ve never heard anyone clap as loud as he does. I cover my ears whenever they score because of the sound of him yelling, “Who Dat”, with all his hoop and holler. He is just naturally more expressive than most, and when he’s stirred up it comes out loud and demonstrative. 

Most of us have been to a game and heard the sound of a packed stadium vibrating with cheering during a football game. With the band playing, the crowd cheering and the commentators giving the play-by-play of the game, the sound is intense. Those who have experienced this have seen a very small glimpse of what I believe is happening in Heaven around God’s throne right now.

The more we learn about God and all He has done for us, the more reason to get excited. He has won the victory over every single thing that is set against us and even death is defeated! The atmosphere of His presence is filled with joy and victory. He has no need of a curtesy clap from us, but we have a deep need to have our hearts ignited and all defeated areas in our life turned to victory. 

Come on, won’t you join me? Let’s stir ourselves up and fill our hearts with the sound of cheering! We cheer in gratitude for what God has done in our life up to this point. We cheer in thanksgiving for His abiding presence, compassion, and faithfulness to us today. We cheer by faith for the future He’s promised, and celebrate the hope that’s waiting just up ahead.

And we stir our hearts up with the sound of cheering, not only for ourselves, but on behalf of our friends and family. Friends that are in the world and all of our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. We cheer for God’s intention and purpose in one another, unashamed and without reserve because to be generous with our kindness is to be like Jesus.