Psalm 150(ESV)
1 Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens!
2 Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his excellent greatness!
3 Praise him with trumpet sound;
praise him with lute and harp!
4 Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
5 Praise him with sounding cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
Reflect
Jake Potter, author
We have now come to the concluding verse of Psalm 150, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!” The whole psalm has been building towards this. We have discussed over the past few days how each line of the psalm works together to paint a universal picture of praise. All of creation praises God for all he is and all he has done, using every possible musical expression.
Verse six serves as an invitation for everything that has breath to praise the Lord. There is no one who is omitted from being able to praise the Lord. But this is not a declaration, however, as there are those who can and will refuse this invitation. This is because when we praise God, we don’t merely talk about God’s good qualities – we are declaring the truth of who God is and aligning ourselves with that truth. God desires that all would come and do this, and the invitation is sent. But like the parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
There is something so poetic and beautiful about God desiring the worship of everything that has breath. As a worship songwriter, I become increasingly aware of how small and shallow I am in contrast to how big and great God is. When I write songs, I often feel that it is never good enough. Many artists feel this about their work, but the reason I feel that my art is never good enough is because no matter how good it is, it pales in comparison to how good God is. I realize that I could spend all eternity singing God’s praises and it would still come short of the praise he deserves. Christian rock band My Epic has a song called “Liturgy” that describes this:
“For years I’ve tried to speak
But words always fail and my voice never seems
To say what I mean to about You
As hard as I’ve tried to write
To shuffle the notes and to structure the lines
They’re never as lovely as they should be
For all of my singing, I’ve still never sung
A melody worthy or perfect enough for You
But there’s an anthem that wells up within
It echoes Your heart till I’m bursting with it
Perfectly still and completely silent
Your voice flows like music
Overwhelmed and speechless
I lose my breath then
And how do I sing this?
For all of my singing, I’ve barely begun
To tell of Your beauty to fathom Your love
And I’ll fail to attain it but I’ll never give up
Cause Your deep calls to deep, and rings out to me, and I just sing along
No single song could say it all
I used to think that I was writing these songs for You
But I see the truth
You fill my soul till I overflow
And pour it all back out to You
So I’ll sing with You”[1]
I feel this is why God desires the worship of everything that has breath, because even if the whole world were to praise the Lord, it still would not amount to his infinite greatness. This is why when we see a glimpse of what worship looks like in heaven in Revelation, we are shown “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.” It all comes back to the universal picture of praise that Psalm 150 has painted. Our response to his infinite goodness is an infinite amount of praise.
[1] My Epic, “Liturgy” (Facedown Records, 2013).
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Respond
Meditate on how big God is. Think about it until it hurts a little bit. Then try to think about the kind of worship God deserves. Ask God to fill you with Himself and empower you to praise him even more than before.
