I was struck by how many times the Psalmist mentioned his speaking of God and his works: “My praise is continually of you” (v. 6), “my mouth is filled with your praise and with your glory all the day” (v. 8), “I will praise you yet more and more” (v. 14), “My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge” (v 15), “I will remind them of your righteousness” (v. 16), “I still proclaim your wondrous deeds” (v. 17), “[Don’t forsake me in my old age] until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come” (v. 18), “I will praise you with the harp… I will sing praises to you with the lyre” (v. 22), “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you” (v. 23), “My tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day long” (v. 24).
How is my praise to God? How frequent is it? How much of my day is filled with praise? How exuberant and overwhelmed is my heart and the wonderful grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ? How much of my words to others are about what God has done or is doing (either in Scripture, history, or my personal experience in this world)? I want to be like the Psalmist. I want to be so close to God that I talk about him a lot and praise him a lot from within. I don’t want people to feel like I force a conversation about God with them, but at the same time I want to be intentional to point our attention to Jesus Christ in some significant or God-centered way that at the same time cares for and takes into consideration the person (or persons) with whom I am speaking.
