Psalm 117

Praise the Lord, all nations!

   Extol him, all peoples!

For great is his steadfast love toward us,

   and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord!

Psalm 117

We made a very impressive list this past Sunday of things, people, and relationships for which we are thankful to God. There was a mixture of earthly blessings and eternal ones. I found it so refreshing to turn my focus to areas of complete praise and gratitude, and at least for a moment, turn off all the areas of problems and dissatisfactions that tend to distract me.

That very concept reminded me of a bit of counsel Ryan and I received several years ago. The basic idea is that the intensity of our problems and pain diminish when we intentionally turn our focus to praising God for who He is. Directing our praise to Him for His character, not just what He has done for us, has a way of reprogramming our minds and getting us out of our own way.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most of us spend a great deal of time in our own heads, fixating on our issues, our fears, our pain. The more our focus is on that, the worse it all gets. So if we purposefully, diligently work to fixate on God’s goodness, promises, provisions, faithfulness, power, wisdom, grace...those things now become the object of our focus far more and our thought lives become healthier for it. It doesn’t mean that the problems or the pain disappear, but the practice (and sometimes discipline) of praising God puts our eyes and hearts where He always intended for them to be.

I know this probably sounds like a very basic theological principle, but I can’t be the only one who knows things in theory and has a hard time implementing them in real life practice.  Pray the words of this psalm as a starting point, and thank God for being God, for loving us with a fierce and faithful steadfastness unlike anything we will ever experience from anything or anyone on this earth. Let everything else fade into the background.