Bless the Lord… I Dare You!

If you ever want something really encouraging to memorize, take the first five verses of Psalm 103, then tack on verse one at the end again for good measure. When you’ve committed these joy-generating verses to memory, I guarantee you’ll want to speak them out loud, and often.

David calls on every part of his being to bless and praise the Lord. He invokes the holiness of God. He reminds himself of ALL the benefits God has poured into his life. David remembers that God has forgiven his sins, healed his diseases, rescued him from destruction, chosen him to pour out his love and mercy upon, and satisfied him with life-giving, youth-renewing, divine provision. There’s so much of God’s nature revealed in these few short verses, it’s breathtaking just to think about.

Is God greater and more powerful than whoever or whatever is coming against you today? Of course He is, and meditating upon and speaking out the words of this Psalm can help make that a palpable revelation in our lives and circumstances.

Psalms are songs, they are musical in nature, and when we speak out words like these, I can’t help but think this is like a musical process. Praising God helps get us in tune with Him and get in tune with His mind and His will, even when we don’t understand what He wants to do in our lives. No one had more tough days to get through than David, and in this Psalm, his response is to command his inner being to bless the Lord and to remember all of His benefits. That’s how he got in tune with his Maker… That’s how he became a man after God’s heart.

The pain and heartache we often face is all too real, and I don’t mean to minimize the weight of real problems and real crises that must be faced. Yet, when I speak these verses, I know there is spiritual dynamite exploding inside me. I have yet to find a way to speak these words out of sincere praise to God and not have them affect me in a profound way. That’s just what God’s Word does. Try it—see if you can stay discouraged or downcast when these words soar into your spirit. Go on… Bless the Lord… I dare you!