Psalm 71:14-24
The second half of this psalm turns from plea to praise, or more accurately, to the promise of public praise:
But I will hope continually
and will praise You yet more and more.
My mouth will tell of Your righteous acts,
of Your deeds of salvation all the day,
for their number is past my knowledge.
With the mighty deeds of the Lord GOD I will come;
I will remind them of Your righteousness, Yours alone.
Psalm 71:14-16
I envision a soldier in a foxhole under a barrage of artillery desperately praying to survive the night and promising to serve the Lord thereafter. My guess is that such “foxhole commitments” number in the thousands, if not millions. (As the saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes…) But I wonder about the rate of follow-through; that is, what percentage of those who “make a deal” with God under stress go on to fulfill their half of the bargain? The percentage is certainly not zero, but neither is it 100.
My guess — and it is only a guess — is that the answer is far closer to zero than 100. I base that only on observation of human nature and of myself. I have never been in combat, but I am pretty sure that I have nonetheless bargained with God along the lines of, “If You save me from X, then I’ll do Y.” The problem is that I have conveniently forgotten all those commitments and am only “pretty sure” that I might have made them…
All of that goes to say that we ought not forget to return praise and thanksgiving to God for all the wondrous things He does as He pours out His steadfast love on us. He deserves such praise regardless of whether we vow to give it or not. So as we read this psalm together, with its promises of praise, take the opportunity to actually follow through and praise the Lord, right here, right now.