Psalm 103 - 23 April 2009

‘Praise the Lord O my soul;

      all my inmost being,

            praise his holy name.

Praise the Lord, O my soul

      and forget not all his benefits –

who forgives all your sins

      and heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the pit

      and crowns you with love and compassion,

who satisfies your soul with good things

      so that you youth is renewed like the eagle’s’. Psalm 103: 1-5 [NIV]

We were talking the other day about how difficult it is to do some of the things we sing. One that the group I was in discussed, was “every blessing you pour out I’ll turn back to praise”.  All three of us in the group recognised how much we took for granted and didn’t turn back to praise.  This line is part of him that goes on to say that even when the darkness closes in we will praise the Lord, but so often in my daily life praise is missing even when things are going well.  How about yours?

One of the great themes through the psalms is one of praise; for who God is and for God’s blessings spiritual and physical.  David really celebrates the goodness of God.

We have so much that it’s easy to take it all for granted.  We go to bed and expect to wake up in the morning and everything to be as it was.  Travel is so safe that we expect to arrive safely at work or for our children to get safely to school and back.  Yet all these are blessings from God which many people can’t take for granted as much as we can.

Why not make today a day of praise and thankfulness?  Every time something goes well or simply to plan offer a short prayer of thanks.  If you’re up to it bless the Lord even when things go wrong but let’s start with what we can do.  I’m sure if we could learn to do this it would change the type of people we are.

Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name.