With rising rates of mental health problems, particularly among young people, emotional and mental wellbeing are given significant airtime on mainstream and social media platforms. The Bible too has plenty to say on what is good and wholesome not only for our spiritual but emotional and mental health too.
The Old Testament psalms speak frankly about the emotional highs and lows experienced by the authors and how they overcame them.
1. Establishing a good practise: Giving thanks | Singing praises
Psalm 92 kicks off with a bold and direct declaration of the goodness and wholesomeness of giving thanks to the Lord and singing praises to His name.
Psalms 92:1
It is good to give thanks to the LORD,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
The psalmist is unashamedly advocating for a habit that he’s found wholly beneficial and useful – a habit of thanksgiving, praise, declaration of God’s virtues and His worship. He makes no qualms as he says this a good thing to get stuck into, a great exercise to engage in, a positive habit to develop. He’s unequivocally asserting the habit of thanksgiving, praise and declaration of God’s virtues and His worship is inherently wholesome and good.
2. Anchoring it in a rhythm: Morning & Evening | Everyday
However, he does not stop there. He continues to tell us that it is good to engage in this exercise daily, to do this regularly and without fail incorporating a declaration element of the steadfast love and faithfulness of God morning and evening, day and night –
Psalms 92:2
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
It is not a one-off exercise he is advocating but a daily practise. It is meant to be routinely done, embedded into your daily routine and lifestyle. There’s to be an intentionality and regularity to thanksgiving if it’s going to prove its worth in your life, i.e. if you’re going to experience its benefits to you. Giving thanks profusely and exuberantly, declaring God’s steadfast love and faithfulness daily and without fail, morning and evening is a good thing to get stuck into, a great exercise to engage in, a positive habit to develop.
3. Engaging in it unreservedly: Going all out
It’s also not meant to be something we hold back or exercise restraint about. In fact, the psalmist is encouraging accompanying thanksgiving with multiple musical instruments – Psalms 92:3
to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
It is good then, not only to give thanks to the Lord, praise His name and declare His steadfast love and faithfulness daily but to go all out, without reservation or holding back and do it with music and melody. We are to vocalise and give verbal expression to our thanksgiving with musical accompaniment. In fact, music was created and originally designed for worship of the Almighty.
We are to make a big noise and create a jamboree of thanksgiving.
The psalmist bursts forth with thanksgiving, praise, declaration and worship day and night as he considers God’s steadfast love and faithfulness demonstrated in His works.
Psalms 92:4
For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy.
He is so bowled over by the works of God’s hands he gladly offers thanksgiving and praise extolling God’s virtues in worship. His entire person, not only his mind and intellect, but his emotions too are involved in this expression of thanksgiving to the Lord for he’s been touched and overwhelmed by God’s work in general, and particularly his own life, what God has done for him. There is a wholehearted, all-out engagement of the psalmist in his thanksgiving and praise, declaration and worship of God.
In all this exercise of daily giving thanks to God, praising Him and declaring His love in worship and adoration we are the beneficiaries, not God. God is wholly and totally self-sufficient requiring nothing or no one outside Himself for His existence and fulfilment. His glory does not fade nor diminish if we withhold praise and worship from Him. Neither does it grow or increase because we give it to Him. Our worship and praise do nothing for God per se but benefit us, the donors of praise and worship, for we find fulfilment as we lock into the purpose of our existence.
Giving thanks to God and singing praises to His name is a holistic spiritual discipline that contributes to our emotional and mental wellbeing too.
This is what the Spirit is communicating to us through the psalmist here – the goodness and benefit to us of cultivating a life of thanksgiving and praise, declaration and worship of the Lord that is wholehearted and total. Not half hearted or reserved.
grace unbound 