Bless the Lord, O My Soul
- Tina Punneo
- Nov 27, 2019
- 2 min read
The Thanksgiving season is upon us. This is the time of year that we not only stuff our faces with Turkey and various kinds of food, but for Christians we try to pause and make this a special day of thanks to God for all of His provisions.
We often focus on the word thank you or thanksgiving in scriptures this time of year, which is great. We should always take time to thank God for his blessings backed with scripture.
But what if we focused on the word 'bless' this year? We often, throughout the year, are asking God for his blessings upon us. Another wonderful thing to do to ask God for his favor upon us, to ask him to provide for us. In fact the word bless means, "to confer or invoke divine favor upon; ask God to look favorably on."
There are two verses in Psalm 103:1-2 that asks us to shift our focus of blessing.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget none of His benefits
Instead of asking God to bless us, David, in this Psalm asks his soul to bless the Lord. He is invoking his soul to look favorably on the Lord. The original Hebrew word in this context means "to kneel; by implication to bless God (as an act of adoration)."
Bless the Lord O my soul, means to kneel before God and offer him our adoration and praise for all he has done. Thanksgiving takes on a whole new meaning. To bless means to offer thanks with a sense of reverence, awe, praise and adoration to God.
If you continue to read Psalm 103, David continues to list many reasons as why he appeals to his soul to bless the Lord. "He forgives all my sins, He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies, He fills my life with good things (Psalm 103:3-5). The lists goes on from there continuing to add to the many reasons as to why David feels compelled to bless the Lord.
This Thanksgiving, I'm going to ask my soul to bless the Lord and thankfully offer him my praise and adoration as I make the same plea to my soul as David did, to "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits."
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