The Psalm 145 List

Confession: I have a ridiculously deep passion for lists. Yes, I am one of those people who make a list for everything and who are magnetically attracted to anything that looks like a list/organization tool or book or kit. So as I have been studying the Psalms for the past few weeks, I came across Psalm 145, which in my worn-out little Bible has the subtitle "A psalm of praise."

Ok, well that isn't new.

Then I came to verse 2: "Every day I will praise you."

Every now and then I will read through things and all of a sudden a question or thought will pop up in my head. In this case it was simply: "Every day? Hmm, this sounds practical!" The psalms tend to be inspirational, emotional, worship-ful and many other things, but practical? That isn't how I would describe the majority of the psalms. So with that thought in mind I kept on reading and, guess what? I found a list! There is a list of verbs in this chapter that I think are David's practical ways to glorify the Lord every day. Here it is:

1. Teach the next generation about God (verse 4)
2. Meditate on His works (verse 5)
3. Proclaim His great deeds (verse 6)
4. Celebrate His abundant goodness (verse 7)
5. Sing joyfully of His righteousness (verse 7)
6. Call on Him in truth (verse 18)
7. Fear Him (verse 19)
8. Love Him (verse 20)

What a nice list! Feeling so inpired and satisfied, I wrote this list in my journal, closed it and was about to get on with my day, but...God has really been teaching me lately about action. I can't just hear about something or talk about something or even learn something without DOING something about it. That is like making long elaborate lists but never crossing anything off! (Which I confess I've been guilty of too!) So I went back to the list and started thinking realistically. And of course, I made ANOTHER list! I challenge you to answer these questions honestly along with me:

1. What is my life (actions and words) teaching the next generation?
2. What is mostly on my mind?
3. What do I most loudly proclaim? (Kind of rhymes with "complain"!)
4. What do I celebrate?
5. Do I even allow enough joy in my life that it could make me sing? (Not to mention the reason for this singing...righteousness???)
6. Who do I call upon, really?
7. Through my actions, who or what am I fearfully honoring and respecting the most? (peer pressure, culture, trends, money, reputation, insecurity...)
8. Who or what holds my deepest affection?

By the way, answering "nothing" to any of these questions is almost worse than a wrong answer! I am still pondering all my answers and I hope you will join me in examining our hearts to find out who or what may be taking the place of God in our every day lives. Instead of just nodding and smiling at a nice little list, let's ask the hard questions and then DO SOMETHING!

I was greatly blessed by a speaker I heard the other day who encouraged people to just pick one thing out of all the things we are trying to learn spiritually because they are all interconnected. When we focus on learning one thing, it will automatically start affecting the other areas of our life and lead us to the next thing. So if you are not a list person, don't be overwhelmed!

By the way, I didn't mention all of the benefits and blessing mentioned in Psalm 145 that go alongside these practical actions of praise, so go read it, pick one and start.