Bless the Lord, O my soul!” cries the psalmist numerous times in his songs of praise. Psalm 34 and Psalm 103 are great examples of this action. But what does it mean to “bless” the Lord? Scripture tells us that “it is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior” (Hebrews 7:7). So we ask, then can we, the infinitely inferior, bless the Lord, the Supremely Superior? Well, it only happens because God, our superior, desires and ordains that we can bless Him with our praises and our actions of worship and praise.
There are two main things that we do when we bless the Lord. The first is synonymous with giving thanks and praise. Some translations actually say, “Give thanks to the Lord,” where others say, “Bless the Lord.” So, blessing the Lord is praising Him and giving thanks to Him—for blessing us! The other thing we do when we bless the Lord is to proclaim Him blessed, to attest to His holy nature.
When we call God blessed, we are saying something about who God is. He is blessed, which is a synonym for “holy.” Blessed is God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! The Byzantine Divine Liturgy always opens with the glorious and magnificent “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, both now and forever and unto ages of ages!” When we speak of God as the recipient of our blessings (praises and thanksgivings), then He is blest. May the Lord be forever blest!
We are to bless the Lord, because too few people do it, and He deserves better that that from us! There is a great old hymn that says:“Blessed are You, O Christ our God... O Lover of Mankind, glory to You!” Blessing the Lord is a vocation, and not merely and occasional prayer formula for times when one is feeling happy. Let’s face it, for most people, the two main forms of prayer are Asking and Complaining. We come to God with a list of petitions, and if we don’t get what we want, we complain and grumble, or else we merely manifest our ongoing discontent with The Way Things Are. But we are to foremost have a relationship with God in prayer, and part of that is to bless the Lord, to praise Him and make Him the center of our attention.
Blessing the Lord can be a real “lift” in my prayer life. The Byzantine When we are glorifying God, he ianhabits the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3). To bless the Lord is ascend to a higher and more noble level of awareness, to gratefully recognize God’s universal providence, to honor his wisdom and his plan for the spiritual growth and salvation of all. It is a resounding “Yes!” to all God is and does. This does not mean that we are oblivious to the evil in the world; we simply acknowledge that God's wisdom, compassion, and timing are better than ours,and He is stronger than any evil, and we bless God in trusting Him. To bless the Lord makes us “transparent” to God’s grace, an opening for his light to come in to the world, while we simply lose ourselves in Him. We are to become windows for his light to come into the world.
We may very well do more good for ourselves and for the world by blessing the Lord than by asking for what we need. “For your Father knows what you need before you ask him… Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well” (Matthew 6:8, 33). That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ever ask, for Jesus also said, “Ask, and you shall receive,” but I think that our asking ought to be balanced by (at least) equal amounts of blessing.
So, bless the Lord, O my soul, and you, souls, all of you, bless the Lord! Proclaim his blessedness, his holiness and infinite goodness, and make sure that He is forever blest by your gratitude and praise. Gather all your prayers—petition, penitence, praise, worship, and thanksgiving (and even your complaints, if you must!)—and send them to Him in a package labeled: “Blessed are You, O God!” It’ll get there faster than any other.
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