More Than 10,000 Reasons
One of my all-time favorite worship songs is Matt Redman’s “10,000 Reasons”. The song won two Grammy Awards for “Best Contemporary Christian Music Song”. It is a love and blessing song to God.
“You’re rich in love / And You’re slow to anger / Your name is great / And Your heart is kind / For all Your goodness / I will keep on singing / Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find. / Bless the Lord oh my soul, oh my soul / Worship His Holy name / Sing like never before / O my soul. / I’ll worship Your Holy name.”
Did you notice that the singer is telling his soul to bless and worship the Lord? We know what it means for God to bless us, but what does it mean to bless Him? It simply means to praise and worship Him. Blessing the Lord is speaking well of God while we’re driving in traffic, taking a shower, watching our kids’ ball game, at a board meeting or in a “boring” conversation. It is living in a state of “blessing the Lord”.
All throughout the Bible, especially the Psalms, we see the people of God blessing the Lord. It’s not just something we do on Sunday or on our good days. Blessing the Lord should be as constant as breathing (and for the same reason—because we need it). In Psalm 34:1, David says, “I will bless the LORD at ALL times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.”
Among my 10,000 reasons to bless the Lord, was my family’s time together this Thanksgiving week. I drove (Bless You, Lord, for my car) safely to Rusk, TX. My car was loaded with all the fixin’s for our Thanksgiving meal together. (Bless You, Lord, for our food and being together.) That gave us time to tour Epiphany Ranch (Bless You, Lord, for the radical life changes in people who come to those grounds!) It was an “Epiphany” for us as we celebrated and BLESSED God for His goodness. (Bless You, Lord, for my husband who got this party started many years ago). Bless You, Lord, for my children who are carrying on our legacy of devotion to God and each other. Bless You, Lord, for humor and tears and memories. I made it back home to Austin on Thursday (Bless You, Lord, for my home and garage).
This blog is to prepare us for when trouble comes or overwhelming joy comes – to always “Bless the Lord”. God sets us up for the times we need to be our own encouragers. “Bless the Lord, oh my soul” were King David’s words as he was commanding his soul (his will, mind, and emotions) to bless the Lord. He was encouraging himself with what he needed to do to rise above his circumstances.
Those words from Psalm 103 were Matt Redman’s inspiration for this song. He explained it this way: “If you wake up one morning and you cannot think of a reason to bring God some kind of offering of thanks or praise, then you can be sure there’s something wrong at your end of the pipeline, and not His. We live beneath an unceasing flow of goodness, kindness, greatness, and holiness, and every day we’re given reason after reason why Jesus is so completely and utterly worthy of our highest and best devotion.”
We are two days past Thanksgiving today, but I am not relenting from bearing down on the importance for gratitude. For “10,000 reasons” and so many more, I was reminded that putting gratitude as my #1 priority, keeps me in a gratitude mode — even when things aren’t going the way I had hoped them to go. Gratitude opens the floodgates to many more reasons to be thankful. I’m purposing to follow David’s lead to talk more to my soul so my “10,000 Reasons List” continues to grow. How about you?