Speak in Praise of the LORD

Psalm 145

by Rev Jackie Stoneman

I’m sure that we have all encountered the following sorts of people.

The first sort of person is someone who only ever wants to talk about happy things. They deny any pain and suffering. They are the sort of person who might say to you in a crisis ‘cheer up, look on the bright side - it could be worse!’.

There is the sort of person who puts their head in the sand. They won’t face reality at all.

There is the sort of person who always imagines the worst. Everything is terrible and they can’t see good in anything. They are always expecting a disaster.

It’s easy to point the finger at what others are like, however maybe we can recognise ourselves in these descriptions.

When we read God’s word it can be the same. We can only look at happy, cheery Bible passages or we can never look at the Bible and let it examine our lives – we have our head in the sand or we can dwell on the difficult passages and think that we can’t have any hope because the Bible is too difficult to understand.

This year we have been looking at four Psalms that express a range of situations and emotions. I wonder what sort of reactions we have had to them?

In the last Psalm, Psalm 145, David summaries for us the great God that we worship and serve. I think this Psalm has such power because David has already expressed such a range of emotions in the Psalms that he has written. He isn’t like any of the people we have described earlier. He knows the pain and sadness of life; he knows his own sinfulness; he knows the joy of answered prayer and the heartbreak of answers that have been difficult to bear. Yet here is how he summarises what God is like:

3 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.

8 The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

9 The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.

13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The LORD is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does.

14 The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.

17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does.

18 The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

These are the truths about God that ground us in a broken world. As we come rapidly to Christmas let’s remember that our God became a human baby so that He could die for the sins of the world and rise to conquer death. That is ultimately where we see the fulfilment of all God’s promises and the tangible expression of God’s character and love. This is reality and this is where hope is.

Like David let’s continue to be honest with God as we live in this broken world but lets look to Jesus to give us the true perspective on life and join David when he says:

21 My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD. Let every creature praise his holy name for ever and ever