Sing Praises to God – Psalm 66

A text – Psalm 66:1-12

¹ Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth;
² sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise.
³ Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! Because of your great power, your enemies cringe before you.
⁴ All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you, sing praises to your name.” 

⁵ Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds among mortals.
⁶ He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There we rejoiced in him,
⁷ who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations—let the rebellious not exalt themselves. 

⁸ Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard,
⁹ who has kept us among the living and has not let our feet slip.

¹⁰For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.
¹¹ You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs;
¹² you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.

A reflection:

The psalmist praises God for the power God has used on Israel’s behalf. These praises are sung by someone who is rejoicing not just in Israel’s history of deliverance by God but also in his or her own personal experience of God’s deliverance.  God blesses and saves God’s people, and God also disciplines them with burdens, with trials that test them, and then with deliverance.

How might this psalm be helpful for us this week? What is it trying to say to us? How does it work with this week’s other lessons? On Monday we had the gospel lesson for being sent out with instructions to cure the sick and proclaim the kingdom of God. Surely a God who delivers us will meet us at the end of this mission of being sent out, and surely this God will deliver us from evil if we encounter it on the road. On Wednesday we had the letter to the Galatians, who were beset by people insisting that new Christians be circumcised, when that was unnecessary. Paul tells his people they are to live in service to their neighbor but do their own work, and that they (as well as the others besetting them) will reap what they sow. God is making a new creation out of them all, not holding them to old requirements.

Perhaps as verse 10 says, we are being tested, sent, tried out on work new to us, but God knows, Jesus knows, we are up to the task as long as we do our work, help the neighbor, and rejoice in what we are becoming. All the while, the whole earth is praising the name of the God we belong to. So we join in that praise and make a joyful noise!

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for bringing us through trying times to appreciate your goodness and the power you use to keep us. Help us to remember that you are always with us and will bring us out into a spacious place of peace. Amen.