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21st June 2025
SaturdayReflection
Marshall Segal
President & CEO of Desiring God.org
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"The Psalms Know What You
Feel"
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
.... Psalm 150:6 GNT
The first and last psalms tell us a great deal about what God wants us to see and hear in all the psalms.
The first is quoted far more often than the last:
Happy are those who reject the advice of evil people, who do not follow the example of sinners or join those who have no use for God. Instead, they find joy in obeying the Law of the Lord, and they study it day and night.
.... Psalm 1:1-2
Psalm 1 tells us that the happiest and most fruitful people, anywhere on earth and at any point in history, will be those who delight most in the words of God.
The words of this book - and every other book in the Bible - are meant to be read slowly, wrestled with, and savoured.
And not just for a few minutes each day, but throughout the day.
The psalm is an invitation into the rich and rewarding life of meditation.
If the first psalm tells us how to hear from God, though, the last psalm tells us how to respond.
Humble, wise, happy souls let God have the first word, but encountering him eventually draws words out of them.
Like the disciples, we
"cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard"
.... Acts 4:20
How does God bring 150 psalms to an end?
With a clear charge and refrain:
"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
Anyone can discern what the last psalm wants us to do in response to what God has said.
All thirteen lines make the same point: "Praise the Lord!"
"God doesn't minimize or neglect our suffering, but his goodness to us always outshines the trials he hands us."
No matter where we are, and how bleak or difficult our life becomes, we always have reason to praise our God - to stop and worship him for who he is and what he is done.
"Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!"
.... Psalm 150:2
Our reasons for praising him - his mighty deeds and his glory over all - always eclipse and outweigh what we suffer, and all the more so now that Christ has come, died, and risen.
God doesn't minimize or neglect our suffering, but his goodness to us always outshines the trials he hands us.
And so the psalmist can say to every one of us, at every moment of our lives,
"Praise the Lord!"
And through mountains and valleys, through trials and triumphs, through ecstasy and agony, we hear one common, beautiful thread: praise.
In the throes of fear, praise.
In the vulnerability of uncertainty, praise.
In the darkness of doubt, praise.
Even in the heartache of betrayal, praise.
The praise doesn't always sound the same, but we still hear it, in each and every circumstance.
And so the book ends, after every high and every low, with a call:
"Praise him. . . . Praise him. . . . Praise him."
Can you praise him where you are right now?
With Whatever You Have
Praise him with trumpet sound;
praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with sounding cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
There aren't as many lutes and harps and tambourines in most modern worship.
The specific instruments are not the point, however.
The point is that God deserves more than our words.
"The purpose of breathing is praise."
So, in whatever circumstances God has given you, and with whatever energy and resources he has given you, praise the Lord for who he is and for all he's done for you.
><(((°>
This is an edited version.
The full article is avaiable on request
'Marshall Segal'
serves as President & CEO of Desiring God.
He's the author of Not Yet Married: The Pursuit of Joy in Singleness & Dating.
He graduated from Bethlehem College and Seminary, and serves as an elder at Cities Church.
He and his wife, Faye, have three children and live in Minneapolis.
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