My mouth will declare the LORD’S praise; let every living thing bless His holy name forever and ever. Psalm 145:21 (CSB)

I love fall. I love eating, and I love spending time with my friends and family. Even though we’re in Florida, sometimes it gets a little cooler, and I love being able to wear sweaters and boots. 

One of my most favorite things is going around the table and listing what we’re thankful for. 

It’s the season for gratitude!

When we first decided to write this post, we quickly decided on finding verses about being thankful. 

The Holy Spirit led us to Psalm 145, though, and I will admit: I cried. 

It’s so easy for me to list all of the things I love, all of the things I am thankful for. My husband and son, my chosen family, my house and paid-off-car. God has provided so many things for my family and I.

But I never once thanked God for being God. 

It’s so easy to thank God for all of the things He does for us; all of the things that He has given us. Even James states that all good and perfect things that we have are from Him (James 1:17 CSB).

But God is bigger than what He does for us.

David talks about it in this psalm. David isn’t praising God because of his circumstances. Nor is he choosing to extol God because He gave him all of these wonderful things.

He’s praising God because He alone is worthy of praise.

The LORD is great and is highly praised; His greatness is unsearchable. One generation will declare Your works to the next and will proclaim Your mighty acts. I will speak of Your splendor and glorious majesty and Your wondrous works. They will proclaim the power of Your awe-inspiring acts, and I will declare Your greatness. They will give a testimony of Your great goodness and will joyfully sing of Your righteousness. The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in faithful love. Psalm 145:3-8 CSB.

David lists out the characteristics that make God, God. In CSB, it’s entitled “Praising God’s Greatness.”

Great isn’t just a step up from good, it’s exponentially better than good. Great is something that can’t be comprehended. This is God.

David, in Psalm 145 and others, tries to put the insurmountable greatness of God in a way that we can start to comprehend. He lists Him as great, powerful, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and great in faithful love. He is good to everyone! Not just His believers, because He made everyone.

David also switches between telling the readers about God’s greatness and praising Him. It’s almost like he’s telling us “Look how great God is, let’s praise Him together!” and then he repeats the cycle. 

It reminds me of when I first had my baby. People would crowd around him and just tell me how cute and little he was, then switch into baby talk to chat with him. It’s like the calling to talk to him was just too much to ignore.

God is too much to ignore, and praising Him is one of our instincts as followers of Him! We are called to have a relationship with Him; to praise and worship Him! And this Psalm is a beautiful example of David doing just that.

This isn’t a particularly long post, because it doesn’t really need to be. It’s simple. God is great, focus your gratitude on Him. 

David isn’t praising God for the circumstances God has blessed him with. He didn’t mention his circumstances once in this Psalm, because they don’t matter. The things God had blessed him with, are at the bottom of his totem pole. 

David is praising God for being God, not what God has done for him. These things that David lists (while we do benefit from them) are not done specifically for us, they just are who He is. He is perfect in all of these things, showing us grace and compassion, in a way that no one else is capable.

What can we do with this information? Well, I’m really glad you asked!

My mouth will declare the LORD’s praise; let every living thing bless his holy name forever and ever. Psalm 145:21 CSB.

David says it simply, praise Him. Just like the great commission, we are called to tell others the good news of our God. Jesus died for us, and God is perfectly wonderful. 

As genuine disciples, it should be easy to just talk about Him. Let’s do that together this week!