Our Psalm for today is from Psalm 103 and the response that will be sung is “The Lord is kind and merciful.” This is a Psalm of David and is a great source of meditation for us, especially if you read the whole Psalm, all 22 verses. Here are just a few verses and some things to ponder:
Verse 1 Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all my being, bless his holy name.
How do we do this with all our being, especially when we get so busy with our daily lives? Think about this verse and how different our lives would be if we did this – blessing God’s Holy Name with all our being all day long, especially in all that we do and say. Our lives would certainly change for the better.
Verse 2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
When we stop and think about how God has given us so many benefits or gifts – our faith, our family, our vocations and careers, and… Complete this statement by considering all the benefits or gifts you have received from God – write them down and refer back to and add to the list when you forget to thank God for his daily benefits.
Verse 3 He pardons all your iniquities, heals all your ills.
Another word for iniquities is sins. God is so kind and merciful that when we sin he will forgive us; however, we should not ever sin thinking that our sin is ok since God will forgive us anyway. Oh no, we know better than this. We must do our best not to sin in the first place.
Verse 4 He redeems your life from destruction, crowns you with kindness and compassion.
How many times does God save us from ourselves and our choices? Do we give Him credit for doing this or do we assume we saved ourselves? In the Old Testament, God saved the people of Israel and even King David from themselves, time after time. In today’s first reading from the first book of Samuel he saved King Saul from death.
Verse 5 Merciful and gracious is the LORD, slow to anger and abounding in kindness.
Just think what state we would be in if our Lord was not merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in kindness. We humans can do some awful things to ourselves and to each other. Things that make other people so mad at us that they do not want to be merciful or kind to us. They don’t want to
forgive us. We humans are not always slow to anger, and certainly not abounding in kindness. When these things happen, we can turn to this Psalm as an example for our lives and guidance on how we should live each day, blessing God and loving our neighbors.
May we all do the best we can to bless God this week and thank him for all he does for us.