Daily Devotions

“Praise the LORD!” – Psalm 111:1 & 112:1

I personally love a challenge. In my life, I have challenges ranging from home improvements on an almost 90-year-old house, to running half marathon races, to parenting a child in the digital age. In our readings for today, we do not really encounter a challenge, but Psalms 111 and 112 were definitely a challenge to compose. These two Psalms are acrostic poems, which means that each new line was written in an alphabetical order representing the 22 characters of the Hebrew alphabet. This would be the equivalent to starting each line of a 26-line poem with the next letter in the alphabet.

I like challenges, so let me give this acrostic poem thing a try:

                An apple a day keeps the doctor away,

                But better than that is wearing a hat.

                Cats can purr and lick their fur,

                Dogs can bark and run at the park.

OK, enough of that silliness and very poor poetry (if you can call it that). When we read through these two Psalms, we see a cohesive and God praise-filled work of art that were sung together in Jewish worship. These two Psalms are linked. They are combined to truly lift up and to “Praise the LORD!”

In our lives, we are called to be just as intentional with our praise to God. We have been created to sing God’s praises in all that he has done in this world. Sometimes this is an easy thing to do and other times it might be a challenge. It is easy to often overlook God when times are good in life and to really seek him when things get rough. But just like the author of these Psalms took on a challenge to write these Psalms, we too can be a part of something beautiful as we worship our Lord and Savior each and every day.

Questions for reflection: