Let everything that has breath praise the Lord...

Psalm 150

¹ Praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in his mighty heavens.
² Praise him for his acts of power;
    praise him for his surpassing greatness.
³ Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
    praise him with the harp and lyre,
⁴ praise him with timbrel and dancing,
    praise him with the strings and pipe,
⁵ praise him with the clash of cymbals,
    praise him with resounding cymbals.

⁶ Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord", that's what life should be all about, praising our God! He deserves all of our praise, he deserves praise in every area of our lives, but too often we leave the praising for a Sunday morning during worship. 

I've been thinking...what does it really look like to praise God in every area of my life? Do I give God praise enough throughout my day? Why is it that I can be so blind to the miracles that surround me each day? I think the answer to those questions are that at my core I am selfish, I get too focused on myself, my plans and my day to really give God the praise he deserves. So how do we change? 

Recently I was challenged to start to pray that God would really open my eyes to see the ways He answers prayer in my life. Sometimes we get so caught up in the things we feel like He hasn't answered yet that we miss the other answers to prayer. And when we miss those other answers to prayer, we miss an opportunity to give God the glory and praise He deserves. 

Each week my friends and I meet to walk or run on a trail with our kids. And each week I see other moms pushing their strollers and I always wonder...do they know the Lord? For years I have just been OK with wondering, but this week God convicted me. He convicted me that I need to be praying for opportunities to talk with those other moms that I see each week and open doors to share His truth. 

So on Monday I prayed and on Tuesday God answered! 

During our run, I saw mom after mom and I continued to pray, "God open doors for me to talk with them and give me boldness". And when we reached the end of our run at the park, it was filled with moms and kids, more than I had seen in a really long time. Now, I'm going to admit...I got a little shy. I wasn't quite sure that I could start a conversation with someone I didn't know. But I decided I had to be bold and obedient and you know what, I didn't even have to start the conversation, another mom asked me a question first. God is SO good! He blessed me with the opportunity to meet two new moms and tell them about my church and invite them to join our group on our outings each week. I love that my God answers prayer!

Psalm 150 got me thinking today. I love how the verses talk about all of the ways that we can praise God, it goes through so many different types of instruments. I love music, put anything to music and I can remember the lyrics (well...sometimes I have a tendency to remember words to songs incorrectly...but hey, I still remember them.) These verses are talking about way after way that we can praise our God, through many different expressions. It got me to thinking, am I praising God through each area of my life? With all of the different instruments that I have access to? I am praising Him through the way I'm a wife, mom, daughter, friend, employee? Does my life bring Him praise? So today, I am challenging myself to slow down and ask God to open my eyes to the miracles around me. God's miracles are not over, they don't only happen in Bible stories, they are real, they are here now and they are all around us. So today, I choose to look for them and I choose to praise my God in every area of my life. There's always time to stop and thank and praise God for all that He has done!