I will praise you seven times a day because all your regulations are just.
A few weeks ago I was getting ready to do a mountain bike ride with my best friend. I was excited to ride with him and to get out in the outdoors, I mean it was going to be a good day. Now one thing you need to know about me is that I hate to ride in cold weather. If its under 50 degrees, I really don't want to ride. Well, the morning we were going to ride, it was 41 degrees, so already my mind was thinking "I really don't want to ride in this weather." Then on the 30-minute drive to the trailhead, that was all I was thinking about..."its too cold, I won't enjoy this, I'll be freezing the whole time." So I get to the trailhead, my buddy is there and its still 41 degrees. He's wearing shorts and excited to ride, I'm bundled up with several layers of clothes and wondering "what the heck am I doing here." So we started on a ride, me grumbling about how cold it is. So we get to a creek crossing. I started across, my front tire plants in a hole and I go over the handlebars and land in the water, feet soaked, gloves soaked...and its 41 degrees! For the next hour I rode with wet, cold feet, grumbling, feet starting to go numb and all I wanted to do was head home.
What happened that morning that set the tone for the whole ride? It wasn't that it was cold outside...it was what I did knowing it was cold outside. I could have focused on riding with my best friend and enjoying the time with him...but NOOOO! I chose to focus on how I didn't want to ride in the cold...and it went downhill from there. We do the same with God. We will let some thing get our minds off of our Lord and on to a circumstance. What the psalmist was trying to convey in Psalm 119:164 was how important it was to keep our minds on God and in order for him to do this, he would praise God seven times a day. Now I don't think the actual number is the important part, what IS important is that he put God as the focus of his day. When we praise God, we get our minds off of our circumstance and onto Him. When that happens, He is able to work on whatever it is that is bothering or troubling us.
Make a point of taking several moments each day to praise God!
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