What do you most like to do in life?  Maybe your job (yeah right, you say!), or a hobby or helping at a food bank or being with your children/grandchildren?   I am almost never, ever bored because there are so many interesting things to do.  If I were to list them, you might throw up your hands and say what a dull man John really is!  We’re all different in so many ways. What grabs you, may have no interest whatsoever for me.

Psalm 146 has something for all of us.  Like what?   How about praising our Lord?  The final five psalms in our Bible are all ‘praise songs’.  Each begins and ends with “Praise the Lord”, which is but one word in Hebrew.  A familiar one–‘Hallelujah’.

‘Hallelu’–Praise, ‘Ya’–Yahweh.  Praise the Lord!  Praise all through your day.  As the psalmist says, ‘I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being”.  Whatever time we have left in this world, fill it with uplifting praises to our Lord.   We’ll be singing His praises for all eternity, so why not get started now?

They say that this life is no dress-rehearsal.  But maybe, in some ways, it is.  When I sang lead with a Gospel quartet called ‘Livin’ Harmony’, we would practice and practice,  rehearse and rehearse…until we felt comfortable with the words and music.  Took lots of time and effort, feeling like the proverbial ‘grind, grind, grind of the grindstone’.  But the end result was worth it.  The audience could enjoy what they would not have if we had not worked hard to make it as good as we could.  Practice made perfect…well,  almost!

In the same way, you can tell when you’ve spent time through your day praising and thanking the Lord.  Others probably can sense it also.  Since we’ll be praising Him for all eternity, why not start right now?  Why not…even when you feel quite the opposite?   When you’d rather shake your fist at Him in disappointment, hurt or anger.  Praise Him anyway.   Practice now.  Do it.  Will come in handy later.  Practice will make perfect in the ‘sweet by and by’…with Him who is worthy of all our praise.

Prayer:  Lord, we praise you today.  Every day.  All day.  Day in and day out.   In Jesus’ Name.  Amen.