Today, we’re in Psalm 116, a psalm that has significant meaning to me. As  I prepare this podcast, my husband, Doug, and I are amid a medical saga that began 23 days ago with an expected 5-to-7-day hospital stay.                

Truly, we made plans, but the Lord directed our steps. After open heart surgery, Doug spent 17 days in the hospital with complications and, as the doctors put it, “too many blood clots in his lungs to count.”       

Now, as we round out our time with another six days in a nearby hotel waiting to be released, 450 miles from home, I find myself in Psalm 116.

There are no coincidences with our sovereign God!

Just as this song was personal for the psalmist, since “I,” “my,” and “me” are used over 30 times in these 19 verses — this psalm is personal, in this very moment, for me.

Please join me in reading Psalm 116, entitled “I Love the Lord.”

116 I love the Lord, because he has heard

    my voice and my pleas for mercy.

2 Because he inclined his ear to me,

    therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

3 The snares of death encompassed me;

    the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;

    I suffered distress and anguish.

4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:

    “O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!”

5 Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;

    our God is merciful.

6 The Lord preserves the simple;

    when I was brought low, he saved me.

7 Return, O my soul, to your rest;

    for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

8 For you have delivered my soul from death,

    my eyes from tears,

    my feet from stumbling;

9 I will walk before the Lord

    in the land of the living.

10 I believed, even when I spoke the words,

    “I am greatly afflicted”;

11 I said in my alarm,

    “All mankind are liars.”

12 What shall I render to the Lord

    for all his benefits to me?

13 I will lift up the cup of salvation

    and call on the name of the Lord,

14 I will pay my vows to the Lord

    in the presence of all his people.

15 Precious in the sight of the Lord

    is the death of his saints.

16 O Lord, I am your servant;

    I am your servant, the son [or in my case, the daughter] of your maidservant.

    You have loosed my bonds.

17 I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving

    and call on the name of the Lord.

18 I will pay my vows to the Lord

    in the presence of all his people,

19 in the courts of the house of the Lord,

    in your midst, O Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord!

So, fellow under-shepherd, did you offer a praise of thanksgiving to our Lord today? If so, why?

I want to challenge you to take 15 minutes and journal your answers and jot down the ways God has saved you as He did the psalmist who authored Psalm 116.                 

Remember the thanksgiving and the praise you need to offer to Him again, and give a word of testimony about what God did in your life.      

Take a moment and, as the psalmist did, shout “PRAISE THE LORD!” And, maybe those you influence and impact will be inspired to do the same.

Thanks so much for joining me this week. May you live deeply into your calling.