BLESS THE LORD

Psalm 34:1-3 CEB 

I will bless the Lord at all times; 

his praise will always be in my mouth. 

I praise the Lord—let the suffering listen and rejoice. 

Magnify the Lord with me! 

Together let us lift his name up high!

I don’t know if you’ve read Psalm 34 recently but try reading it in different versions like The Message or CEV and others, it’s so encouraging.😊 It’s written by David who we know had experienced every kind of stress and distress imaginable but had remained steadfast in his faith in his God. 

When we find ourselves under pressure, or things seem to be all wrong, we may have a tendency to complain or mutter and even ask God where He is in it all! But God hasn’t gone anywhere, He’s right in the thick of it with us!😊

David discovered the secret of praising God when life was hard, even when his life was threatened, because he knew his God would not just hear his prayers, but would come to his rescue. He had proved it time and time again and he constantly reminded himself of what God had already done for Him and how mighty He is to deliver. We can do the same and remind ourselves of when God has come through for us before, when He forgave us, delivered us and never gave up on us.

David chose to bless God, to thank and praise Him because of who He is and because he knew his God would not let him down. His praise came out of a trusting, thankful heart, regardless of what was happening around him.

He wanted us to know praise defeats the enemy. Satan can’t stand being around people who are praising God for His goodness, faithfulness and loving kindness especially when we know we don’t deserve it, or things are going pear shaped!

So let’s be encouraged today to release our praise and bless the Lord, our wonderful Saviour, for all His goodness, for always hearing our prayers, and coming to our rescue.😊

Psalm 103:1 NKJV Bless the Lord O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name! Amen.

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

DON’T OVERTHINK IT!

Matthew 6:34 NIV Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I wonder if you're like me because I can overthink a bus ticket! My daughter will sometimes say to me “You’re overthinking it mum!” and I’m glad she does because it helps me realise what I’m doing.😊

The trouble with overthinking is it takes us places we really didn’t need to go, where we weren’t supposed to go! For some reason we think we know what other people are thinking about us, when they’re probably not even thinking about us in the first place!😊

God reminds us to cast all our cares on Him, not to lean on our own understanding, not try to work everything out in advance. At the end of the day we can’t do anything about other people’s reactions or actions and they are God’s responsibility not ours.

Then there are the times when we overthink and try to do what only God can do and it’s so freeing to know God actually wants us to take our hands off and let Him do things His way without our so called ‘help’!😊

God has promised us grace for each day, for every situation. Maybe right now you ‘think’ you need to be involved or ‘think’ you should be helping in some way, but God will let us know if He wants us to do something and if He doesn’t then we can mind our own business because we probably all have enough things in our own lives to handle anyway!😊

So next time you catch yourself overthinking what you said and did, or what they said and did or what might or might not happen, or what you should be doing, or not doing, just take a breath and stop for a minute to remember we’re in God’s loving hands. Our God is merciful and if we’ll give it all to Him, He can sort everything out if we’ll only let Him!

So, maybe this is a good moment to commit our thoughts to the Lord and ask Him to help us stop overthinking everything, don’t you think!?😊 Amen.

Have a blessed weekend.x😊

Photo by Alazar Ferrazzini on Unsplash