Attack Your Problems With Praise
1”I WILL extol You, my God, O King; and I will bless Your name forever and ever [with grateful, affectionate praise]. 2Every day [with its new reasons] will I bless You [affectionately and gratefully praise You]; yes, I will praise Your name forever and ever.” Psalm 145:1-2 Amplified Bible
This whole Psalm by David is one of praise. It is noteworthy how he starts off this Psalm. David says in verse one that he will bless the name of the Lord forever and ever. David is a man who had a lot of struggles and difficult situations. Read his life story and you see a lot of highs and a lot of lows but the constant throughout his life is summed up in this verse, he praised God at all times and in all things. This is a valuable lesson that David is passing on to us, learned over a lifetime. The key is the power of praise in all things and at all times.
David lived a life that endured these kinds of highs and lows and yet he tells us in Psalm 145 that he praised the Lord always and forever. In good times and bad, David had learned that the key to success was praise from his lips. Even looking ahead from the moment he wrote this Psalm, David knew that he would praise God for the good times and in the inevitable storms of life ahead.
David attacked his problems with praise, a lesson most of us have not yet learned in life. How important is this lesson? Well, in the second verse he reiterates his commitment to praise God at all times and in all things. Anytime something is repeated in short order in the Word it should be viewed as an exclamation point, an effort to focus your attention on the importance of that truth. David is saying that it is his praise of the Lord that delivered him from all circumstances and trials in life, even the ones that were self-inflicted troubles.
What are your problems today? What trials and storms are you facing? Have you praised Jesus today? It is likely that you do not feel like praising God when things look bleak, but the truest measure of our faith is when we can praise Him even in the midst of the storm and before we see the deliverance evidenced. In storms, our tendency is just to try and ride out the coming onslaught. We feel like our problems are a tsunami that is about to pore over us, and we just want to brace ourselves and hope we can withstand the wave and not be carried away by it. That was not David’s approach. Just as with Goliath, David had an attack mentality. Just as he rushed toward the giant to attack, he attacked his problems with praise because he understood the spiritual power of praise.
Many would say that they have nothing in life to praise Jesus for, but David answers that as well. In the second verse, he tells us that every day God is giving us reasons to praise Him. If we open our eyes to the spiritual realities then we will see that daily evidence of His hand of love and deliverance in our lives, and every day we will have new reasons to praise Him. We will be armed daily with new things to praise Him for, new ways to attack the trials of life. Arm yourself today and attack, don’t just sit back and hope you survive. Attack the problem with praise!
J. Todd Hostetler