BLESS THE LORD

Bless the Lord, O my soul:
and all that is within me,
bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all His benefits
Psalm 103:1,2

It's been such a pleasure chewing my way through this precious Psalm of David. Not only with this Psalm, but there are others containing the phrase, “Bless the Lord.” I must admit to you that my first hearing of this phrase was not in my reading the Psalms. I'm recalling a dear saint from my home church who used to use the phrase frequently. She would say it at a time she was happy, or perhaps happily surprised. I didn't get the feeling she was using God's name in some kind of negative way. She had an air of gratitude when she would say it.

I've been fascinated by this phrase for some time and decided to look up in various sources what is meant by our blessing the Lord. You see, we are quit use to His blessing us, but we don't think of the ways we can bless Him.

In reading Psalm 103 (which I encourage you to delve into), in the next few verses, David reminded himself of how God had so richly blessed him. In verses 3-6, we see what David saw of God's goodness to him:

*Who forgiveth
*Who healeth
*Who redeemeth
*Who crowneth with lovingkindness
*Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things
*Who renewed our youth
*Who executeth righteousness, etc. for the oppressed

I look at that list and see the same things David saw of God's goodness and faithfulness in his own life as I see in my own. David wanted to bless the Lord for all of those blessings and even more, there wasn't enough space to mention at the time the rest of what he listed in the rest of the chapter. But then, he was most insightful when we look at verse 7:

He made known his ways unto Moses,
his acts unto the children of Israel.

David wrote on in verses 8-24 to speak more of God's blessings and how everyone no matter of position in live should be people who bless Him. But here, just into the chapter David seems to make note of two levels of God's blessing on those who do or don't bless Him. Two entities from history for David came to mind as examples. In verse 7 are two key words: WAYS and ACTS. This verse too reveals the amount of trust God had in two entities....Moses and the children of Israel, referring to their time in the wilderness.

My relationship with God, my love and devotion will determine to what extent God can trust me. The children of Israel with their ups and downs spiritually only saw God's acts....manna from Heaven, water from the rock, fire on Mt. Sinai, etc. They saw God's actions and not the God who brought them out of Egypt. Moses, however, was a man of very deep faith. He too saw God's acts, but He could entrust Moses with His ways. God didn't just give Moses what He was doing, but some of the hows and whys.

I don 't know about you, but I want to know and love God enough for Him to entrust me with more than just general information. Some of this can come to any of us, especially when we are people who bless the Lord. When we bless Him we show appreciation, recognition, attention, praise, admiration and love. David shouldn't be the only one who blesses the Lord. It wasn't just an exercise for him, but a way of spiritual being. David had come a long way with God since his erring days and now was a man after God's own heart. May it be so for you and me as well
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Dear Father, God...I bless You today. I so often take for granted all Your goodness in my life and I'm so sorry for being so lax. I bless and thank You for Who You are, for Jesus and for Your sweet Holy Spirit who is truly closer to me than any human person. In it all, I praise you with all my heart. In Jesus' precious name...Amen