Meditation Monday: I Will Bless the Lord At All Times

Happy Monday! Today's post is inspired by my Pastor’s sermon The Secret of the Journey.

Here’s a great way to study a specific verse: repeat it (out loud) over and over, putting emphasis on a different word or phrase each time you say it. This will cause you to think of the verse in multiple ways. Today we’re going to use this technique with Psalm 34:1.

Psalm 34:1 I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Background

But first, let’s get into the story behind this Psalm. The superscript above the Psalm says, “A Psalm of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech; who drove him away, and he departed. “

Side note: I LOVE the story of David and have read and studied a lot about him.

So once upon a time, David was running for his life because King Saul was trying to kill him.  (King Saul was none too happy that the Lord had chosen David to take his place as king of Israel.) 1 Samuel 21:10 states that David “fled that day for fear of Saul.” Where did he go? To Achish the king of Gath. (To clarify, King Achish in 1 Samuel is the same person as Abimelech in Psalm 34. I’m going to refer to him as King Achish.)

You know Goliath the giant? He was from Gath. I personally think it was a really stupid move for David to enter the city where the giant he killed was from. I guess King Achish figured out David was the giant killer. He definitely realized that the guy standing in front of him looking for safety was none other than the famous warrior, known for killing ten thousands.

Once David realized that he was no stranger to King Achish, he became afraid of the king and knew he needed to get out of there. So “he changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard” (1 Samuel 21:13). He literally acted like a fool, a maniac, a loon, whatever you want to call him. David acted like a crazy man.

And it worked.

King Achish was not happy about the mad man in his court and sent him packing. David managed to escape. That’s when he wrote Psalm 34.

Study

I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Who will bless the Lord? I will! It doesn’t say we or you, because no one else can do this for me. I must praise Him for myself! I mustn’t let the devil steal my praise—he wants to rob God of anything that pleases Him, and my praise pleases the Lord!

I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

The word will means that it will be a deliberate action—I have the power to control my own actions! 

I won’t allow my praise and worship to be dictated by my feelings, but I will choose to praise Him because it is commanded of me.

I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

I will bless Him because He has so greatly blessed me—He is my provision, and He deserves it.  Psalms 63:4 says “Thus will I bless thee while I live.” I can’t bless Him once I’m dead, so I’ve got to do it now!

I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Everyone wants a piece of you—of your time, your focus, your energy.  I must decide that no one around me will become the priority of my focus; only God will dominate my life. In order to do this, I can’t let others drain me of what is the Lord’s, meaning I might sometimes have to withdraw from others. I must be God-focused!

I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Every moment of every day, wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, whoever I’m with. It doesn’t matter. At all times, I’ll bless him. I don’t have to wait until I’m alone or in a private, quiet place. I can always bless him.

I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

I must praise him out loud! I’ll admit, this used to be hard for me. What if I said something dumb and someone noticed? Finally, I realized that praise isn’t about me or my neighbor—it’s only for God. So I had to change my behavior. I did it anyways. Who cares what others around me think? I don’t praise God for their benefit!

Application

Pastor requested that everyone read Psalm 34 out loud first thing every morning, before doing our normal tasks or before browsing social media. (He did, however, give explicit permission for us to make a cup of coffee first, because coffee and Bible reading go well together.) This is one simple way to make sure we put the Lord before everything and everyone else. So I’ll be reading Psalm 34 out loud every morning this week!