Praise the Lord, my soul

1Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

2Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits,

3who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

4who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,

5who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

6The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

7He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel:

8The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

9He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;

10he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

11For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;

12as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;

14for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

15The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field;

16the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

17But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children,

18with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.

19The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.

20Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.

21Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will.

22Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the Lord, my soul.

Psalm 103

Last week we climbed up out of the depths. This week the Psalm is different, and so is the tone: Psalm 103 doesn't start with a cry, it starts with a song. David speaks to his own soul, like someone shaking a friend by the shoulder: "Praise the Lord, my soul." He isn't giving orders to other people. He is giving orders to himself. Because gratitude, he knew, isn't a feeling that just shows up. It's a decision we make before the feeling arrives.

Notice verse 2, which is the heart of the whole Psalm: "forget not all his benefits." We forget. We forget fast. The prayer answered in March feels normal by April. The forgiveness that changed everything turns into routine. Psalm 103 is the cure for that forgetting: a long, careful list of what God does, so the soul can remember and, remembering, give thanks.

Maybe you're in a week where giving thanks feels forced. There are bills to pay, a test result to wait for, someone who didn't come back. Psalm 103 doesn't ignore any of that: it talks about diseases, about the pit, about dust, about a flower the wind carries away. David knew what a hard life was. And still he chose to begin and end with the same word: praise. Not because everything was fine. Because God was.

Read the whole Psalm today, slowly, out loud if you can. It's 22 verses, but they move lightly. From Tuesday to Friday we climb one step a day: the benefits, the forgiveness without measure, the Father who remembers we are dust, and the praise that fills the whole sky. On Saturday, a practical guide for thanking God when life is hard. And on Sunday, the week in review, with the whole Psalm explained verse by verse.