Day 25: Psalms of Praise & Thanksgiving

“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will declare what He has done for my soul. I cried to Him with my mouth, and He was extolled with my tongue.” (Psalm 66:16-17 NKJV)

Thanksgiving day. Originally, a three-day celebration of God’s faithfulness.

What did the Pilgrims really have to be thankful for? They were essentially exiled from their native land. They had lost 45 members of their group, all friends and family members.
They were facing a rough future, carving out a new life for their families in a country with none of the conveniences they were accustomed to.

But they had a three-day celebration because their hearts were overflowing with gratefulness for the faithfulness of God. They knew He had His hand on them, even though life in the New World had been extremely rough.

The Pilgrims adopted the praise lifestyle of David. When trials came, they bared their hearts and cried out to God. And then with their next breath, so to speak, they praised Him for hearing and answering their requests. Their thanks weren’t based on the way God answered their prayers, but on the fact that He answered.

Praise is acknowledging the gift of God’s answer, no matter what the answer may be.

In today’s passage, David isn’t thanking God for his outward circumstances, but for what God had done for his soul, the innermost part of his being.

I don’t know what your Thanksgiving looks like today. It may be full of gratitude for physical gifts like health, safety and material belongings. Or you may be facing the day with heartache and the pain of a story that is only half written.

Either way, know this: you can praise God for hearing and answering your prayers, and you can trust your soul to Him because He knows how to care for it in the best of ways.

He is carrying you in the palm of His hand, and you can always praise Him from there.

Stefani