Praise and Thanksgiving

Scripture:
Blessed be the Lord!
    For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
    in him my heart trusts, and I am helped;
my heart exults,
    and with my song I give thanks to him.
Psalms 28:6-7

Observation: We sing in church in praise of God - we sing of his grace, power, and majesty. Here, the psalmist reminds us of why we sing of these things. We do so to give thanks to God. We sing to thank God for ... hearing our prayers, showing us mercy, providing us strength, being our protection, helping us, and becoming our source of trust in life. For these things we thank God in song.

Application: Which of these things has God done for me recently, for which I shall sing to him? I just went through the list and decided "all of them", but let me focus on one item this morning ...

God is providing me strength right now, every day. I have still been nervous about my new job. It started with being lead here by God into this unknown place. It continues in that I am nervous every day and fearing I am not doing well enough. Now that I know the situation here, and the business conditions are even worse than I feared, I am more nervous that I am not good enough and strong enough to 'fix' the situation.

However, I know God IS strong enough, and he put me here for a reason. My job isn't to "run IT", it is to change the lives of the people and bring glory to God. My job ahead is not to find the best way to run software, or better organized tech support, or decrease total cost of ownership, or create new government capabilities. My job ahead is to ensure people have good lives, where they can feel respected and honored, and to give glory to God ... so they can see the good results and give credit to my father in heaven so that they may come to believe in Jesus Christ. I'm not good enough, kind enough, smart enough, patient enough, good enough, or strong enough to do any of that, but God is! He strengthens me daily.

Prayer: Lord, I will sing of your mercies forever. I will sing of your kindness and goodness, of your love and mercy and faithfulness. I will sing in the morning, and I will sing in the evening. And you know I'll cry while I do it, because it is you who brings about my tears of joy and humility. Thank you for loving me so much that you would create song so that we can express our love for you in return. Amen.