I will extol You, my God, O King,
And I will bless Your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless You,
And I will praise Your name forever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised,
And His greatness is unsearchable.
(Psalm 145:1-3, NASB)

The more I know God, the more I realize that my response to Him is cold and inadequate. He is the Sovereign God, the Creator who overflows our sprawling universe, the One who holds insignificant me in His hand and in His heart, who constantly lavishes on me His attention and His most tender love and care, the One who poured Himself out and groaned and bled and died for me. Yet my response to Him is so occasional, so shallow, so distracted, so half-hearted.

I don’t necessarily want more emotion in my worship. I want to be more aware of God…to always be centered on Him…to have an open line of communication between us every moment…to trust Him simply and constantly.  I want to spend less time longing for what I don’t have and more time thanking and praising Him for all that He constantly gives me. I want a living praise, a continual response to His presence.

The Psalms prod me toward such praise:

Praise the Lord, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name. (103:1, NIV)

I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. (146:2, NIV)

I have no hope that I can give Almighty God adequate praise. But His Spirit is faithfully drawing me to Him. The closer I live to Him, the more natural and heartfelt praise becomes. Read Isaiah 6 and Revelation 5. Those who stand before God’s throne need no prodding to praise Him. How can they possibly do anything else?

That is my destiny. That is the destiny of all who trust Him. We will live in His immediate presence together, forever, responding to Who He is:

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”
(Revelation 5:13, NIV)

One day, the reality of
all Jesus is and
all He has done
will sweep all creation up into
one mighty response of praise,
full heart and
full voice,
forever and ever!
Even then, His greatness will
far overshadow our small response.
For eternity His
overwhelming magnificence
will draw us into lives of
ever increasing worship and love.

Hymn: Psalm 148