It is so good to be reminded that David wrote this psalm when he was under attack from King Saul who was trying to kill him. It is so easy to speak of the greatness of God when we are experiencing His blessing and we are enjoying life. However, it is a test of our relationship with the Lord when we seem to be under pressure and life is not turning out as we thought it would. The Bible declared that “David was a man after God’s own heart” and we see the evidence of this in this psalm as David was not enjoying life. When the pressures of life come we have a choice, we either draw close to the Lord or distance ourselves from Him and try to live by our strength. I have lived both ways and have decided that there is no satisfaction in pleasing one’s self. The only way to excel is to press closer to the Lord. Verse 3&4 is quite profound because David says: “Because your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you, thus will I bless you while I live; I will lift up my hands in your name”. NLT “Your unfailing love is better to me than life itself, How I praise You! I will honour you as long as I live, lifting my hands to you in prayer” What captures my attention is that David was not going to wait until his circumstances had changed before he started to declare the greatness of his God. His relationship with his God was not subject to his circumstances and this is a great lesson to learn and live by. I can tell you from experience there is nothing better than to start the day by reminding ourselves of His goodness in our life and how glad we are that we belong to him. There is one thing that I know is true and that is we are a product of the choices that we make. David declared God’s loving kindness was better than life, he was not concerned that King Saul could try to kill him, and he wanted to use every day as an opportunity to express his love to his Lord. And he also declared the way that he would do this was by what he was saying. There is no substitute for us to open our mouths and keep praising the Lord. He did not stop there he also blessed the Lord by lifting his hands to honour the Lord. I think this is an area where we can improve, we lift our hands at church but are reluctant to do this at home. Verse 5 says:” My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips”. ‘Marrow and fatness ‘ is not a modern-day expression but was used as an expression of being very healthy, David was declaring that his relationship with his Lord was very healthy and that was a good reason to celebrate the goodness of His God. This is something to do that is very rewarding, I am so glad that I belong to Jesus and that He is my reason for living. I have learned in all seasons of my life there is so much fulfilment when I joyfully praise the Lord because He is worthy of all our praise.