The Reminders app on my phone is always beeping and buzzing at me all day long, because I always have a long list of to-do items, and I’m always behind on them. I hit snooze so often that some days my phone just gives up and stops alerting me.
So when I have something really important to do, I write it down on a Post-It-Note, and stick it to my desk, so I’ll see it every few seconds. I’ve got a million other things to do that are important, but I know when I see this note 20 or 30 times, this one thing must be done.
Sometimes we need to command ourselves to do things. That’s where David found himself when he wrote Psalm 103. He said, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!” He was reminding his soul — commanding his soul — to bless the Lord.
Blessing God seems like something that should just happen naturally for us. It should just flow out of hearts all the time. But it doesn’t. Jesus said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” and so we need to continually command our flesh to remind our soul to bless the Lord.
But what does it mean to bless the Lord? How could we bless him? It’s not like he’s lacking anything. It’s not like he needs anything from us. Everything we have came from him. Trying to bless God would be like trying to raise the level of the ocean with a paper cup full of water. It’s impossible!
So David describes how we bless the Lord: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” The way we bless God is by recognizing the way he has blessed us.
The reason we often forget to bless God is that we take his blessings for granted. We forget that everything he’s given us is a gift of his grace that we don’t deserve. He’s given us so many things that we don’t even have the right to ask him for.
When the prodigal son ran off with half of his dad’s fortune and blew it all on sex, drugs, and rock & roll, he was forced to come back home with his tail between his legs to beg his dad for help. He knew he couldn’t ask for much, but he thought maybe he could be one of his dad’s slaves.
But when his dad saw his son coming up the road, he ran out to greet him. He hugged him and kissed him him. He put his nicest suit on him. He gave him shoes, which meant he wasn’t going to be a slave, he would be part of the family. He even gave him his own signet ring, which gave his son the authority to sign contracts and agreements on his father’s behalf. Then he threw a huge party in his son’s honor. This kid suddenly had more prestige and power than he did before he left!
The son never expected those things. He never would have had the guts to ask for those things. But his dad was full of grace, so he willingly and joyfully gave him those things. And so the son couldn’t do anything else but celebrate with his father.
A reminders app isn’t good enough to remind us bless God. It only happens when we recognize and celebrate how much underserved grace and blessing he’s lavished on us.