Forget Not All His Benefits

 

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

    and forget not all his benefits,

Psalm 103 ESV

Eugene Peterson, in his book Answering God:  The Psalms as Tools for Prayer, tells us that “forget not all his benefits is the pivot sentence in the showcase salvation psalm, Psalm 103.”  

If we are not mindful, our prayers can focus only on the future and what we and others need from God, and forget all that he has done for us in the past.  If we don’t remember what he has already done for us, how can we trust him to respond faithfully to our pleas for help?

And if we remember all of these blessings, how can we do anything but respond in praise?