Forget not all his benefits

"Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."Psalm 103:1-5

David begins by talking to his own soul, and that already teaches us something: sometimes we need to give ourselves an order. "Praise the Lord, my soul." He doesn't wait until he feels like it. He commands it. There are mornings when praise starts as obedience and only later turns into joy, and that's okay. Psalm 103 is born that way, with someone shaking himself by the shoulder.

Then comes the verse that holds the whole Psalm together: "forget not all his benefits." Not one of them. We forget far too quickly. The door that opened, the fever that broke, the conversation that fixed things, the money that came right on time. A month later it's already normal. David knew that, and so he makes a list.

Look at the list in verses 3 to 5: forgives, heals, redeems, crowns, satisfies. Five verbs, and all of them in the present tense. It isn't what God did once. It's what he does. Forgives all your sins, not some of them. Heals. Pulls your life out of the pit. And then crowns you: treats like royalty someone who was at the bottom. That's a lot to forget.

And it ends with the eagle: "so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." The eagle sheds its feathers and flies high again. That's what gratitude does to a tired soul: it doesn't change your age, it changes your altitude. Whoever remembers what God has done flies higher than whoever only looks at what's missing.