“Praise” Coaching–Part 1
The call to give praise to the Lord, or “bless the Lord” is a common one in the Bible, especially the Psalms. It should be the easiest thing in the world for people who have received God’s grace to do so.
And yet, it isn’t always so.
We find ourselves struggling to come up with things that don’t sound trite or are platitudes. You can talk about how “good” God is, but what is it about his goodness that captures your heart and your mind in order to praise him? When life is hard and listing one’s hurts comes easy but listing God’s blessings does not, how can you be faithful in blessing the Lord without resorting to well-worn but currently empty words?
For those times when we need this kind of help, the psalms come to the rescue. Particularly for me, Psalm 103 has been an important encouragement. In its first five verses it has provided a template that keeps me praising and blessing the Lord for what matters most. Over the next few days, let me share with you how that has happened.
This familiar psalm begins with the clear instruction, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” That sets out the goal–to offer whole person praise (the soul isn’t just your inner person, but the totality of who we are: the inner person manifested through the body). Yesterday, as I listened to a few excellent messages from the Word and to worship teams singing praise to lead those watching, it was easy to let my spirit hear and then respond and my thoughts and voice join in. But there have been plenty of times where it hasn’t been so easy. So what do I do?
The first part of next verse tells me what I must work on. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits…” The great enemy of praise is forgetfulness. Our “what have you done for me lately” mindset loses track of the countless ways that God has indeed blessed us. We don’t mean to, but we live in the moment, and last week’s benefits don’t always come to mind immediately.
The LORD knows this about us, and the psalm provides a great checklist in the following phrases to get the memories flowing again.
“…who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
Of course, the psalm goes on with much more, but if we just stop here, we can have a template of five incredible benefits that never wear out and should never grow old–in fact, we need to experience them every day, so blessing the Lord for them can also be a way of reminding us to cry out for them, too.
Over the next few posts, I’m going to share some of the ways that God has been using these five benefits to build up the flow of praise from my heart. For now, try just reading those verses and blessing the Lord for the whole set: he forgives, heals, redeems, crowns, and satisfies us. We’ll go deeper next time.
