Thoughts for the Day

I will extol you, my God and King,
and bless your name for ever and ever.
Every day I will bless you,
and praise your name for ever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
his greatness is unsearchable....

The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made....

The Lord is just in all his ways,
and kind in all his doings.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfils the desire of all who fear him;
he also hears their cry, and saves them.
The Lord watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

My mother had lots of sayings, and one was "That's the best thing since sliced bread!". It was used when something was absolutely amazing. In today's world when technical advances occur almost hourly we are unlikely to use such a phrase, but for those brought up only with unsliced bread that could be squashed fairly flat by a bread knife when slicing it, no doubt ready-sliced bread was a great improvement. Now I don't particularly want to equate God with sliced bread, but the words in Psalm 118 have this feeling of a sudden exclamation at something monumentous happening, or something new that has been discovered, as though the psalmist (Kint David) has just realised how great is God.

The word 'extol' in the psalm means 'laud', 'eulogise', and 'paean', as well as 'praise' and 'glorify'. The writer, King David, will bless God every day, and in that wonderful moment when all is well in his world, he means to honour his promise. The difficulty is going to be how to keep this up when circumstances change, and so he lists how wonderful God has been to him and his people. He says, God is kind, thoughtful, forgiving, loving, and compassionate. He is also close to us, He listens to us, and ultimately He saves us.

When life seems hard, we should take this psalm to our heart, for praise opens our eyes to all the blessings we receive from God.

Heavenly Father,
we extol and praise You
for Your loving kindness
to us and all Your children.
May we always remember
that You are close to us
even when times are difficult,
and may we never forget that Your plans
are often different to ours.
Give us the faith to continue
praising You at such times.
Amen.