Praise the LORD, O My Soul Hallelujah!
“Praise the LORD, O my soul. I will praise the LORD all my life; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in princes, in mortal man, who cannot save. When his spirit departs, he returns to the ground; on that very day his plans perish.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He remains faithful forever, executing justice for the oppressed, giving food to the hungry.
The LORD sets the prisoners free, the LORD opens the eyes of the blind, the LORD lifts those who are weighed down, the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD protects foreigners; He sustains the fatherless and the widow, but the ways of the wicked He frustrates. “The LORD reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Hallelujah!”
“Praise the LORD, O my soul. I will praise the LORD all my life; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.” Question: is there ever a time when we shouldn’t praise the Lord? Here the psalmist is promising to praise God as long as he is breathing. If someone sitting millenia ago could make such a promise, why can’t we do the same today? None of us has any idea how long we will live, so why don’t we praise God while we still can? There is a story about a man on his death bed who told a visiting pastor that if he could, he would shout “Hallelujah!” The pastor replied, “So why didn’t you shout while you had the breath to do so?”
“Put not your trust in princes, in mortal man, who cannot save. When his spirit departs, he returns to the ground; on that very day his plans perish.” When I worked in West Virginia and my patients agreed with something they had heard, their instant reply was “Yeah, Buddy!” Reading this verse, that’s my instant response! How many people have taken positions, secure in the knowledge that those above them were good people who would treat them fairly, only to find that their company has been bought out and the new management is bringing in their own people? Bye-bye job security! God is eternal, while people are not.
“Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He remains faithful forever, executing justice for the oppressed, giving food to the hungry.” God delivers and provides, even if He uses people to carry out His purposes. “But,” you ask, “what about famines? What about crop failures?” Good questions. God wants those with food to share with those who are starving. Sometimes people do well; however, many times they fail. But that is not God’s fault. The people in His supply system have noise-canceling headphones clamped firmly over their ears.
“The LORD sets the prisoners free, the LORD opens the eyes of the blind, the LORD lifts those who are weighed down, the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD protects foreigners; He sustains the fatherless and the widow, but the ways of the wicked He frustrates. “The LORD reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Hallelujah!” We read this and begin to sputter, “But! But! But!” because we can think of so many exceptions. But consider this: Chuck Colson would never have founded Prison Fellowship Ministry had he not wound up in prison himself. With nothing but time on his hands, Colson found himself reading C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity repeatedly until he finally yielded his heart and life to God. Only God knows the end from the beginning, and only God knows His plans for people’s lives.
APPLICATION: I entitled this study “OBSERVERS ARE WORRIED!” BUT SHOULD YOU BE? from a slogan I say on a Ghanaian tro-tro. The original slogan is “Observers are worried!” Tro-tro’s are the most common form of transportation in Ghana and are usually small buses crammed with passengers. The tro-tro slogans are snappy and catchy, designed to grab attention. I followed the slogan with a question for a reason. It’s likely that everyone in the world has worries of some kind. Even babies cry for their mothers to feed them. But if we are trusting in God, should we be worrying?
In the age of steam engines, many engines could either pour their steam out through the whistle, making a great deal of noise, or they could route their steam to the system that drove the wheels on the engine, but they couldn’t do both at the same time. If the engineer vented all the steam through the whistle, that power was lost without moving the train further ahead. When we worry, we are wasting all our energy in making noises, rather than accomplishing something positive.
This meme is a powerful one. Why waste your sleep time worrying? Turn your worries over to God; He’s going to be up all night anyway. Psalm 121:3-4 tells us “He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” Isaiah 26:3 says, “God will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee because he trusts in Thee.”
The answer to the question I have posed is simple: No, you shouldn’t worry. Worry only damages your body by irritating your stomach lining, giving you spasm in your coronary arteries and palpitations. Worry wastes your energy, and diverts your attention from the only One who can help you, namely, God.
But how do we keep from worry? The quote from Isaiah gives the answer: fix your mind on God.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, help us to fix our minds on You and not on our problems. Thank You that we can discuss our problems with You, knowing that You can give us perfect answers to those problems. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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