Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.
2 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.
3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.
The obvious, straightforward message of this psalm is to praise God. This is stated 13 times in 6 verses! Praise Him for being our sanctuary, for being the Creator, for His mighty acts, for His greatness. Praise Him with all types of music and instruments. If someone has breath, they can continue to praise God and find reason to praise God.
These verses are very simple but we need to be reminded of this often. Because honestly, how much do you praise God throughout the day? I know I read these verses and thought the words were kind of obvious. Yeah, yeah, God is our creator. Yeah, we're supposed to praise Him. I know all that. But if it's so obvious to me and I know I'm supposed to do it... am I doing it? Outside the walls of the church? The truth is, I fail at this quite often. I am very fortunate to be involved in a church where praise and worship is not only encouraged, but the pastor has made us feel comfortable to worship in any way we feel is right. This may mean standing stock still for some people, but it could also mean clapping, snapping, or toe-tapping for others!
Do you have a hard time sometimes finding things "worthy" of praise in your mundane life? I feel like that sometimes. There are days when I wake up at 7am, feed the kids breakfast, spend the morning with them/doing housework, eat lunch, spend the afternoon hanging out again, eat dinner, hang out with my family until bedtime... I mean, there are details there, but are they praise worthy? It turns out they are. And I had to remind myself of this.
I started a "We've Been Blessed!" board. On those days when we never left the house and it seemed like nothing out of the ordinary happened, I had to make a point to find blessings - things I could point out to the kids and remind them and myself that these "normal" things are praise-worthy. This may be something you can use at your house, I don't know.
Anything could go on the list - fresh produce, something special and fun that we don't get to do often, something that brought a smile to my face (i.e. chocolate covered blueberries, for one!!), conversations I had with people, or even accomplishments of my own (kudos to me if I kept calm in a stressful situation!). I've pictured three of my "blessed boards" here just so you see what I'm talking about.
So even on an average day, even I was failing at something, or we got some bad news, I could still find at least a few things to praise God for. And these are just the things He is doing for me.
We should be praising Him...
because He is great (just to name a few) - Jeremiah 10:6 ("Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O Lord; thou art great, and thy name is great in might."), 1 Chronicles 16:25; Psalm 96:4 ("For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised: he also is to be feared above all gods."), Isaiah 12:6 ("Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.")
because He is a great King - Psalm 47:2 ("For the Lord most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth."), 1 Timothy 6:15 ("Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords"), Psalm 47:7 ("For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding.")
because He does great things - Psalm 136:4 ("To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for ever."), Luke 1:49 ("For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name."), Jeremiah 32:17 ("Ah Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee:")
because there is no one like Him - 2 Samuel 7:22 ("Wherefore thou art great, O Lord God: for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears."), Psalm 71:19 ("Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high, who hast done great things: O God, who is like unto thee!"), Psalm 145:3 ("Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.")
and so many OTHER reasons.
We can find reasons to praise Him all throughout the Bible. I urge you as you're reading to write down reasons why He is worthy of our praise. When you're having a bad day and can't think of even one thing that is praise-worthy, look at your list. I think you will find our minds can so easily be clouded by our earthly reality that we forget our HEAVENLY reality!!
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