My Father Loves Me

One of the things that I like to do when I have my quiet time is read the Psalms and pray them back to God as praise.  I do this because I am not a natural "praise-r" and the Psalms easily direct me to the good, no great, things about God that I tend to forget or take for granted. 

This morning I read Psalm 103, New Living Translation, and it simply overwhelmed me.  Let me share some of the highlights and my thoughts (in parentheses):   

• I will praise Him with my whole heart (not just part of me - first note to self)
• He forgives all my sin (enough said with this one)
• He heals all my disease
• He redeems me from death (this is a biggie!)
• He fills my life with good things (do I thank Him for these things every day or am I so busy looking at "the bad stuff" that I take these for granted???)
• My youth is renewed like the eagle's (maybe my constant battle with fatigue is because I don't let Him renew me?)
• He is slow to get angry and me and His love doesn't fail (thank God - I would be angry with me a lot if I were God)
• He doesn't punish me for my sin (big sigh of relief here)
• He is like a father to His children, tender and compassionate.  He knows that I am frail and come from dust (wow - He knows me and loves me even in my weakness)
• His love remains forever and  I should praise Him

These words may not have the same impact on you that they have had on me this morning.  This Psalm made me want to dance around the living room, coffee in hand, in the joy of the Lord.  Wow - with all of this goodness in my life why do I ever complain?

I challenge you:  take a look through the Bible and see what praises you can find that are already written and laid out for you to read back to God.  Let me know what they are and how you reacted.  I'm guessing that, like me, you will find that there is so much goodness in your life that you don't have time to be sad or downtrodden.