Finding Praise in the Psalms (Come, Follow Me: Psalms 49-86) – powered by Happy Scribe
My husband, Steve and I were mission leaders in the Brazil Sao Paulo South Mission. When I first arrived in Brazil, I did not know Portuguese very well. I wanted to make sure that the missionaries and the saints knew how much I loved the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But I could not express those feelings. So I decided to choose a word and a phrase that showed my excitement for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The word was woohoo. The phrase which I learned to say was Wohoo o Evangelio a Verdel. In English. My mantra is wahoo. The Gospel is true.
That is how I feel about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The psalms are also praises to God. The Hebrew title for the Book of Psalms is to heal them, which means Songs of praise. The psalmist often uses words of excitement and positive energy to express his joyous feelings of love for the Lord. Scholars do not know who wrote many of these songs of praise, but some of them are attributed to King David.
As we have already read, david liked to sing and dance. When he brought the ark back to his city. David danced before the Lord with all his might. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord was shouting and with the sound of the trumpet we’ve also read how David made some major wrong choices. He was called to repentance by Nathan, the Prophet of the Lord, and he experienced great remorse and severe consequences for his sins which affected his family and his country.
Psalms 64, 65, 66 and 69 are attributed to King David. As you read these psalms, think about his story of love for the Lord, wrong choices, and deep sorrow for his mistakes. These songs of praise have a lot of lamenting, but they also have sections of woohoo as well. Here are a few of them the righteous shall be glad in the Lord, and shall trust in Him and all the upright and heart shall glory. Thou visitest the earth and WaterST it the pastures are clothed with flocks.
The valleys also are covered over with corn. They shout for joy. They also sing all the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee. They shall sing to thy name. Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth.
O sing praises unto the Lord. Remember that the psalms were often put to music and sung. Many of these beautiful psalms are a part of our hymns today. In our hymn book. The scripture references used for the words of the hymn can be found at the bottom right side of the page.
For example there is sunshine in my soul today is taken from Psalm 16, verses nine and eleven. Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope. Thou wilt show me the path of life in thy presence is fullness of joy at thy right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. While reading the psalms, you will see the word sela many times, and you may wonder what that word means.
Biblical scholars are not sure what sela means. It is a musical term and most likely a direction to musicians, either to play louder or to strike up an interlude between songs of praise. Since biblical scholars do not know, we can have fun attributing a meaning to the word that helps us love the psalms. I like to think of the word as saying amen to the words before it. Feel free to attribute a meaning, a word that describes your own feelings for the gospel, like woohoo.
May we find joy in the Lord this week as we sing praises to him.
Guest Author
dyejo
