Listen

Praise the Lord! Because it is good to sing praise to our God! Because it is a pleasure to make beautiful praise!

The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem, gathering up Israel’s exiles. God heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. God counts the stars by number, giving each one a name. Our Lord is great and so strong! God’s knowledge can’t be grasped! The Lord helps the poor, but throws the wicked down on the dirt!

Psalm 147:1-6

Think

We readily tell others about a great movie we’ve seen so they can too can have a great movie-going experience. We sing the praises of athletes and entertainers, of places and products when we find them worthy or when we have benefited from what they have to offer. Likewise, we rely on the trusted testimony of others to help us decide how and where to spend our money and our time, where to get our teeth cleaned or our annual check-up. We often trust things and people that are highly praised. Yet those things and people can fail or disappoint. Not so with God.

Psalm 147 calls for us to raise our voices and praise God. Praise is our witness to others of what we know about God to be true, what we know God can, has already done, and will do. From our own mouths and experiences, our praise tells others what God has done in the world, in creation, and in our own lives, and assures them that God can meet their needs as well.

Kathy Culmer

Pray

Praise is what I give back to you, O God, in thanksgiving for who you are and for all that you do. When blessings overflow, it’s easy to let you know how grateful I am, but help me to grow in my awareness of your everyday goodness, of unexpected blessings, of your involvement in the simple and the ordinary so that my praise may flow as freely in the little things of life as in the big. Amen.

Go

When we trust God, we do not have to face life’s challenges alone.

It is through our weakness, the things we cannot do on our own,

That God’s strength is made known.