Look Back, Remember, Give Praise
Psalm 105
Give praise to the LORD, proclaim his name;
make known among the nations what he has done.
Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts.
Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.
Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.
Remember the wonders he has done,
his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced,
you his servants, the descendants of Abraham,
his chosen ones, the children of Jacob.
He is the LORD our God;
his judgments are in all the earth.
He remembers his covenant forever,
the promise he made, for a thousand generations,
the covenant he made with Abraham,
the oath he swore to Isaac.
He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree,
to Israel as an everlasting covenant:
“To you I will give the land of Canaan
as the portion you will inherit.”
When they were but few in number,
few indeed, and strangers in it,
they wandered from nation to nation,
from one kingdom to another.
He allowed no one to oppress them;
for their sake he rebuked kings:
“Do not touch my anointed ones;
do my prophets no harm.”
He called down famine on the land
and destroyed all their supplies of food;
and he sent a man before them—
Joseph, sold as a slave.
They bruised his feet with shackles,
his neck was put in irons,
till what he foretold came to pass,
till the word of the LORD proved him true.
The king sent and released him,
the ruler of peoples set him free.
He made him master of his household,
ruler over all he possessed,
to instruct his princes as he pleased
and teach his elders wisdom.
Then Israel entered Egypt;
Jacob resided as a foreigner in the land of Ham.
The LORD made his people very fruitful;
he made them too numerous for their foes,
whose hearts he turned to hate his people,
to conspire against his servants.
He sent Moses his servant,
and Aaron, whom he had chosen.
They performed his signs among them,
his wonders in the land of Ham.
He sent darkness and made the land dark—
for had they not rebelled against his words?
He turned their waters into blood,
causing their fish to die.
Their land teemed with frogs,
which went up into the bedrooms of their rulers.
He spoke, and there came swarms of flies, and gnats throughout their country.
He turned their rain into hail,
with lightning throughout their land;
he struck down their vines and fig trees and shattered the trees of their country.
He spoke, and the locusts came, grasshoppers without number;
they ate up every green thing in their land, ate up the produce of their soil.
Then he struck down all the firstborn in their land, the firstfruits of all their manhood.
He brought out Israel, laden with silver and gold, and from among their tribes no one faltered.
Egypt was glad when they left,
because dread of Israel had fallen on them.
He spread out a cloud as a covering, and a fire to give light at night.
They asked, and he brought them quail;
he fed them well with the bread of heaven.
He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed like a river in the desert.
For he remembered his holy promise given to his servant Abraham.
He brought out his people with rejoicing, his chosen ones with shouts of joy;
he gave them the lands of the nations,
and they fell heir to what others had toiled for—
that they might keep his precepts and observe his laws.
When I was 18 years old I was at a bit of a fork in the road. I loved God, and I wanted to serve Him with my life but I didn’t know what that would look like. For a teenager, this was a heavy weight, and I prayed over it for months.
A couple of years prior, God had done a wonderful work in my hardened heart to lead me to forgive my dad, and as a result of His work in my life I was deeply moved to devote my life to serving Him somehow and in some way. The details were very fuzzy. I wanted to go to the college that God was calling me to, I wanted to go into a field of study that He was calling me into, and I wanted to surround myself with the right friends who would build me up in Christ. I wanted to bless God with every aspect of my life, but I was struggling with a lack of “progress” in figuring out what shape that would take.
I had a bit of a breakthrough after talking to a mentor. He told me to look back. He encouraged me to look back on my life to see God’s activity in it, and that would give me peace despite my teenage angst about a lack of answers. After some journaling, reflecting, and praying it became abundantly clear that God has been good to me, and He will be good to me in the future.
In Psalm 105, the Psalmist calls for the hearers to praise the Lord and to sing to Him. What is the content of their praises and songs? The Psalmist says to “make known among the nations what he has done” and “tell of all his wonderful acts.” One of the ways that we can give God praise is through remembering His faithfulness and goodness throughout history and throughout our lives. That’s precisely what Psalm 105 is doing. Because the Lord has been good throughout Israel’s history, they can give Him the highest praise.
The Psalmist prompts the people to remember God’s faithfulness through:
His covenants made to their forefathers and sustained through history
The giving of the Promised land
God’s protection over them while they wandered the desert as an infantile nation
God’s providence in bringing Joseph to Egypt
Israel’s flourishing in Egypt before their slavery
Moses and Aaron’s leadership in the Exodus
God’s liberating acts in freeing the nation from slavery in Egypt
God’s provision and protection in the wilderness
This act of collective remembrance is fuel for our praise and worship. When we reflect on all that God has done for us we have no other response than to sing with great joy. If we ever wonder: why should we give praise to God? Why would we trust Him? I will pass on the wisdom to look back. There is great power in looking back throughout the redemptive story of Scripture.
There is also a great power in looking back through your own life and seeing God’s protection over you, providence guiding you, and loving care for you. We need to immerse ourselves in the story of Scripture to see God’s activity in it, and we can reflect on God’s activity in our lives too. When I was 18 I remembered God’s nearness to us in the aftermath of my parents’ divorce. I remembered how God raised up people from our church to nurture us. I remembered the friends God sent my way to love me when I was a fragile and angry kid. I remembered that God has been with me every single step of my life up to this point, and even though I didn’t know where He was leading me, He was leading me. I remember sitting in my room and beginning to cry because of the relief I felt. He’s been faithful in the past, we can trust Him with our future. Therefore, I can “give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done.”
I encourage you to spend some time today looking back. Think about how God has been working in your life, and “sing praise to Him; tell of all his wonderful acts” like God’s children have been doing for millennia.