“Reasons To Praise God” is November 15’s entry from Dr. David Jeremiah’s ‘Turning Points with God: 365 Daily Devotions’ (2014).
"I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well."
Psalm 139:14
Instead of trying to catch their children doing something wrong, conscientious parents try to catch them doing something right–and praise them for it:
“Your drawing is amazing!”
“I appreciate the way you let your sister go first.”
“You always seem ready to help. That’s a great quality.”
“Thank you for saying please and thank you so often.”
The point is, there are myriad reasons to praise our children. And there are even more reasons to praise our heavenly Father, if we will be attentive to Him. We may not say, “I praise you, Lord…” every time–but a word of thanks serves the same purpose. As an exercise, keep a slip of paper tucked in your Bible, and make a growing list of the reasons you have to praise God when they come to mind. Chances are, keeping such a list will increase your attentiveness to, and awareness of, all that God does on a regular basis in your life.
Such a list will also keep you from resting on your spiritual laurels. (“Thank You for saving me twenty years ago.”) You will discover fresh new reasons to praise Him every day.
To end, a quote from Charles Wesley, “O for a heart to praise my God, a heart from sin set free; A heart that always feels Thy blood so freely shed for me.”
