Bless the Lord

Psalm 103: 1

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

Let us stop and consider what this really means. What does it mean to you? Is this praise? I don’t think we ever can go wrong in offering praise and I believe that praise always blesses the Lord. However, I hear more in this entreaty than praise alone. The psalmist, David, sounds like he is pulling these lyrics and prayer up from his toes. He commands his own soul to bless the Lord and then He seems to rethink that statement. “Not only,” he might say, “do I demand that my soul bless the Lord but I want to bless Him with everything that is within me.”

This is one of those passages of scripture that is better felt than thought about. I say this because this is an emotional outcry from David and I do not believe we can connect with his sentiments or the words without tapping into something deeper in ourselves. This seems David’s course as well. He wanted His celebration of God to include every fiber of his being. He was reaching into his innermost being to express his great love for God. Have you ever felt that way?

I think when we desire to bless God we will tend to offer him praise and songs but I would wish that we would not overlook the full scope of opportunities to bless God. I wonder if there is any better way to bless Him than to simply say, “I love you Father. Thank you for being my Dad.” We can also bless Him by intentionally choosing courses of action that will please Him. I am thinking of the scenario wherein someone has caused hurt or offense in your life and you say to God, “You know what Father, I am going to choose to forgive that person because you want me to.” Surely He is blessed when His children behave in the ways He has directed us. I believe He is blessed when he watches us write our check to a ministry not because of anything we will get out of it but just because we want to be a blessing.

There are a number of ways we can bless our Lord and what David seems to express in this Psalm is a deep desire to avail himself of every single way he could think of to bless the Lord. His desire to bless the Lord may have even morphed into a deep need to be a blessing. Open that tender part of your heart today and try to connect with David’s heartfelt expression. Let everything within you reach towards the Lord and bless His holy name.