Bless the Lord
Many moons ago, before committing to a closer walk with the Lord, I had a coworker at my office named Celeste. She was on fire for God and quite often we’d have long conversations about life and current events. Sometimes I’d pass her desk with news about this or that and regardless as to whether it was good or bad her response was always, “well, bless the Lord.” It wasn’t long before I became lightweight annoyed with her canned response, but now as I’ve lived a little longer I understand why she’d say that all the time.
The posture for the Christian is to live in a state of worship, of reverence for God. That means that our lives — the dope, shady and even the jacked-up stuff — are to be yielded to the working of God in our lives, even when it’s painful or we don’t understand it. And I’d argue, especially when we don’t understand it. In the Bible David offers us a great example of this. He survived slaying Goliath (I Samuel 17), ran for his life from King Saul (I Samuel 21), committed grave sins against Uriah, his wife Bathsheba and God which resulted in the death of his newborn son (II Samuel 11). Later in life David’s daughter Tamar was raped by his adult son Amnon which resulted in his death at the hand of David’s son Absolom (II Samuel 13). David had great success as king but had survived horrific tragedies and monumental lapses in judgement. His life was wild, but the Psalms tell us that he knew how to bless God through it all. Let’s take Psalm 103 for example — “Bless the Lord, oh my soul and all that is within me.” It’s the all that is within me part that I want to point out. David commanded himself to bless God with the entirety of his being — his joys and triumphs, his sorrows, tears, fears, confusion, failures, pain, doubt and whatever else that lived inside him. He brought it all to God and we know that God still loved David and never turned him away (II Samuel 7).
One of my favorite Gospel songs of all time is Fred Hammond’s, “I Will Bless His Holy Name.” That song has gotten me through some of the roughest times of my life. When a relationship I thought was Heaven-sent put me through hell, that song got me through. Many years later when my firstborn son was born prematurely via an emergency C-Section, that song got me through that traumatic birth experience and the long days and touch-and-go nights with my son in the NICU. And even today in the midst of a global pandemic, a social awakening, political crisis, and multiple deaths within my church family, that song still stirs up my spirit. Celeste was right. There’s just something about blessing God — speaking well of and reverencing God — that changes our attitude and the atmosphere around us. Blessing God breathes life into our circumstances and reminds us who God is and that God can do anything.
We dare not ignore the death, grief and pain that is all around us in this season, but we can absolutely be encouraged that we can bring all of our heartache and pain and all that is within us to a God who still loves us and will never turn us away. Well, bless the Lord.