Invoking God on Bended Knee

I love Matt Redman's song, "10,000 Reasons," or as many call it, "Bless the Lord, O My Soul." In fact, its echoing in my thinking helped me through a tough time not too long ago.

The song is much like the words of David in Psalm 103, which begins, "Bless the Lord, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name!" (Psalm 103:1 NKJ)

 

Let's take a closer look at a few of these words.

 

To bless God means our speaking well of Him. When we bless the Lord, we are exalting and honoring the person of God. The Lord God is owed blessing because the weight of His glory exceeds anyone or anything.

 

Bless is the Hebrew word, barak, which means to praise, celebrate, or adore. Yet one of the ways Strong's defines the word is to kneel. And Gesenius's Lexicon Help goes further to say that blessing God is invoking God, on bended knee. Just as Psalm 22:3 tells us that God inhabits or is enthroned on the praises of His people, when we bless God, we are invoking His presence—in essence, we are opening up a pathway for His interaction with us.

 

The name of God speaks of the entirety of who He is—His character, His reputation, fame, and glory—the totality of His attributes.

 

The use of the word holy to describe the Lord refers specifically to the apartness, sacredness, separateness, and otherness of God.

 

And soul, well, that is the wholeness of me—my "self," my life, my person, my appetite, my mind, my living being, my desire, my emotion, my passion; the activity of my mind, will, and character—all that is within me.

 

Matthew Henry wrote: "we make nothing of our religious performances if we do not make heart-work of them, if that which is within us, nay, if all that is within us, be not engaged in them."

 

Commentator Barnes adds: "The soul of man was made to praise and bless God; to enjoy His friendship; to delight in His favor; to contemplate His perfections. It can never be employed in a more appropriate or more elevated act than when engaged in His praise."

 

Our praise is meant to be a daily exercise that rises not from our circumstances but from 10,000 plus reasons based on the great name of God. He is our God who is rich in love and slow to anger, our God who has a heart of kindness the depths of which we cannot comprehend, and our God whose goodness wraps around our existence.

 

This is the God to whom we pray. This is the God to whom we speak for our children.

 

"But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them… Bless the Lord, O my soul!"

Psalm 103:17-18, 22b