How to Praise God When Life Is Hard
Why the Book of Psalms Ends with Praise
The book of Psalms contains almost every emotion you can imagine.
People are afraid.
They are lonely.
They have enemies.
They make mistakes and plead for forgiveness.
They wonder why God feels far away.
They grieve.
They ask questions.
They celebrate answers to prayer.
They remember miracles.
They worship.
They hope.
And after 150 Psalms filled with all of those experiences, do you know how the book ends?
“Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.”
That seems important.
Because if Psalms had been written only by people whose lives were easy, ending with praise probably would not mean very much.
But that is not the book we have been reading.
These are people who have walked through some really difficult things and somehow, after everything they have experienced, the final five Psalms repeatedly come back to the same invitation:
Praise ye the Lord.
Maybe that teaches us something about what praise really is.
Most of us find it pretty easy to thank God when something goes the way we hoped.
You prayed for something and it happened.
You got the opportunity.
Someone you love got better.
Something stressful finally worked out.
Of course those are good times to thank Heavenly Father.
But President Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught that there is a deeper kind of gratitude—one that does not depend entirely on whether our present circumstances are exactly what we wanted.
He taught that we can learn to be grateful in our circumstances.
That does not mean pretending that painful things are enjoyable.
It means that even while something hurts, there are still truths about God that remain true.
Jesus Christ still lives.
His Atonement still has power.
The Resurrection is still real.
Repentance is still available.
God still hears prayer.
His promises still matter.
And mortality is still only one part of a much larger eternal story.
That kind of gratitude becomes more than simply saying, “Thanks for the blessing.”
It becomes faith.
It becomes testimony.
Psalm 103 gives us a good example of how this happens.
The writer tells himself:
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”
Then he begins remembering.
God forgives.
God heals.
God redeems.
God shows lovingkindness and tender mercy.
Notice what the Psalmist is doing.
He is deliberately bringing God back into his thoughts.
That may be one of the greatest blessings of gratitude.
Whatever feels biggest in our life tends to capture our attention.
When you are worried, you think about the thing you are worried about.
When you are hurt, your mind returns to the thing that hurt you.
When you are disappointed, it is easy to focus almost entirely on what did not happen.
Gratitude helps widen your vision.
The problem may still be real, but now you remember God is real too.
The grief may still hurt, but now you remember what Jesus Christ has promised.
The question may still be unanswered, but you begin remembering what God has already done.
President Henry B. Eyring once described keeping a daily record of how he had seen God’s hand in his family’s life.
Something happened as he kept remembering.
He said:
“More than gratitude began to grow in my heart. Testimony grew.”
That is a powerful idea.
When you begin intentionally noticing what God has done, you start collecting evidence of who He is.
You remember prayers that were answered.
You remember peace that came when you needed it.
You remember times when things worked out in ways you could not have planned.
You remember forgiveness.
You remember help.
You remember Jesus Christ.
Eventually gratitude becomes testimony because you have lived enough life with God to know something about Him.
Maybe that is why Psalms ends the way it does.
After all the questions, all the grief, all the mistakes, all the answers, and all the experiences of mortality, the final message is still:
Praise ye the Lord.
Not because every difficult thing disappeared.
But because through all of it, people had learned who God was.
Scripture
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”
—Psalm 103:2
“While I live will I praise the Lord.”
—Psalm 146:2
“Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.”
—Psalm 150:6
Reflection
What has your own life taught you about God?
What prayer, blessing, spiritual experience, or truth about Jesus Christ are you especially grateful you have not forgotten?
Today’s Challenge
Sometime today, offer a prayer where you spend more time thanking Heavenly Father than asking Him for things.
But go beyond simply listing blessings.
Tell Him what those blessings have taught you about Him.
Maybe you are grateful that He forgives.
Maybe you have learned that He listens.
Maybe you know He is patient with you.
Maybe Jesus Christ has helped you change, endure, heal, or start again.
Then write down one sentence beginning with:
Because of what I have experienced, I know God…
That is where gratitude starts becoming testimony.
Christ-Centered Thought
Praise is not reserved for perfect days.
Some of the deepest praise comes after you have walked through enough life to know that Jesus Christ remains faithful even when life is difficult.
You can praise Him because He lives.
Because He redeems.
Because He forgives.
Because death will not have the final word.
And because whatever chapter you are living right now, your story is not finished yet.
“While I live will I praise the Lord.”
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