I Will Bless The Lord At All Times

“I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Psalm 34:1, KJV).

God reminded me of a sermon that one of the Missionaries at my church gave a year or two ago on this particular verse and she shared how God showed her this verse and asked will you bless Me even when things aren’t going good. Even when people leave you, when things fall apart, will you continue to bless Me? We have a tendency to quote a ton of lovely bible verses yet never really take the time to think about what they really mean and how the words are truly applicable to our own lives. At all times is not referring to just the beautiful days when all the roses are blooming and everything and everyone is perfect; no, at all times refers to at all times. That includes the times when you are broken, the times when you are hurting, the times when everyone and everything is against you, all of that is included in at all times. But let’s take it a step further, at all times also includes those times where you don’t understand why God is allowing certain things to happen. It also includes those times where you are taking a complete faith walk and you feel like God is really silent during the tests that you are facing and you honestly wonder if He’s abandoned you. It includes those times where you’re having a Job moment where everyone is talking about how if the God you serve is so good then why is He stripping you of everything and allowing all these bad things to happen? It includes the times where you don’t feel like blessing the Lord. Yes, all that is included in at all times. 

Something that I really need to work on is being a sloucher. I have horrible posture and it comes from it being more comfortable to slouch then to sit up straight (yes I know that’s a horrible excuse but just follow me). When I do sit up straight it’s really uncomfortable because I’m not used to standing that way but it feels normal to slouch because my body has gotten used to that position. However, I know if I spent more time working on standing up straight my body would eventually adjust and it wouldn’t feel as uncomfortable anymore. As I was thinking about this, God showed me the question, “what is your posture of praise?” You see the thing about your posture is that when you stand up straight you appear to be more confident and it’s the same thing with our posture of praise. For some people it can be difficult to praise and bless God when we are in difficult situations yet when things are going well we can praise and worship God freely with a joy and happiness because everything is working out. The thing is however it’s only short lived because when we hit a road block that makes us uncomfortable we go right back to what we were used to and that can be the woe is me attitude. We go back to the slouching posture where we don’t want to praise God because we don’t like where He has us in the moment and we’re all in our feelings. God showed me that makes you a wishy washy believer. You can praise Him when everything is all good but not when it’s bad. A real praiser and a real worshipper does not just do so only when things are right. When you’ve really learned to praise and worship God you realize that at all times includes the bad times but even more so you realize that the bad times do not change who God is because the fact remains that God is good at all times even when we fail to see it. When we fail to praise Him, God is still good at all times. When we fail to realize what He brought us from last time, God is still good at all times. When we aren’t good at all times, God is still good at all times. When you get to a place that you will praise God at all times your posture of praise will adjust regardless of whether you’re uncomfortable or not because your praise and your worship becomes dependent on who God is and how good He is and not what you may be going through. 

So what has your praise been dependent on lately? When you say I will bless the Lord at all times and His praise shall continually be in my mouth, is that conditional? God wants to know will you still praise Him if the job doesn’t work out? Will you still praise Him if you lose the boyfriend or girlfriend? Will you still praise Him if He takes your loved one? Will you still praise Him if you don’t know how you’re going to make ends meet? Will you bless the Lord at all times regardless of what at all times looks like? 

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