“I will praise the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.”
Psalm 34:1 Praise the Lord! Let all God’s people say: “Praise the Lord!” Man, that feels good to say!! And we have so much to praise Him for. For one, just think of the beautiful weather we have had recently, and the nice rains that many of us have had. Praise the Lord! But did you read the above scripture carefully? It said, I will praise the Lord at all times. Wow! All means All. I will praise the Lord at ALL times. Do you know how difficult that is? It is really against my nature to Praise the Lord at all times! Oh, it is easy for me to praise Him when things are going good for me, but when they aren’t my natural response is to gripe and get angry. Throughout the bible there are characters who had responses like that at one point in their lives, but eventually got to a place where they could say “I will Praise the Lord at all times!” Those are the kind of people you remember. King David, Job, Shadrach Meshach and Abednego, the Apostle Paul to name a few. So how did they do it?
Well, the bible doesn’t say how exactly, but I believe that you can you get a little idea of how by reading their stories closely. One part is they learned how to trust the Lord. If you want to praise the Lord at all times, you have got to get to the point of trusting God no matter what. Once you know that you can trust Him, you have to also be convinced that God loves you! Paul said in Romans 8:38 that he was convinced that nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus. Trusting and being convinced of his love should get us to a point to where we just simply decide with our will that this is going to be the way we live out our lives. I WILL praise the Lord at all times!
I know it is hard to praise him when things are going terribly, but He is faithful and He will see you through. Work at it, and believe me, it will be good for your soul! And what an incredible witness to anyone and everyone around you!! I will praise the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips!”