Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty.
Psalm 104:1
A person’s purpose is the theme of billions of books. I’ve counseled hundreds of people concerning their purpose in life. Recently, I did an internet search to find how many books speak to a person’s purpose in life. Do you know how many books I found? 1.73 billion. I know it’s probably shocking, but people are feverishly seeking to understand their purpose. What job should we take? Which girl or guy should we date? Without meaning, we are like fish moved by every change in the tides. People consider suicide each day because they don’t understand their purpose. Their uncertainty is a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship with God.
So how does this verse help us determine our purpose in life?
Our Purpose is to Bless the Lord Personally!
When you bless something, you bring attention to it, speak, or sing about its excellence. And that blessing comes from the innermost part of your being. It’s not something we do by raising our hands in a church setting while singing praise to the Lord.
Notice here that worship is personal. The Psalmist doesn’t say to look around and what others are doing and copy them. He says, “Bless the Lord, o MY soul. Why? Because worship is personal. We all worship in different ways. Some go around the house singing, and some of us sit quietly while waiting to hear something from the Lord. It’s our natural response to God’s goodness.
I see people in churches all the time singing during “worship.” They read words and sing songs, but they don’t worship. They are not intensely involved in an activity that brings attention to the Lord and focuses on nothing except Him.
Our Purpose is to Bless the Lord Because He is Very Great
Some people say that Muhammad Ali was the greatest boxer of all time. Muhammad Ali said that about himself nearly every time he found a camera or reporters. And for some time, no one could beat him. He finished his career with 56 wins, 37 knockouts, and 5 losses. But there comes a time when age even catches the greatest. He retired in 1981 to allow the next generation of greatness to enter the arena.
But God is different, and His greatness is matchless and infinite. He is the greatest of all time, and God’s greatness identifies his importance to us. There will never be another like God.
Why do we bless the Lord? Why do we sing to Him? Why do we bring attention to him? Because He is vastly more important than anything else in our lives. But wait. Is He? When you evaluate your life, do you look at God as being more important than anything else? Do you put Him before your job, family, and friends? The Psalmist is encouraging us to do just that.
I tend to think that we become distracted with our issues and problems and forget to bless and bring attention to the Lord in our daily activities. I know that I tend to do that. When something doesn’t work right for me, I become so focused on fixing it that I forget everything else around me. This aggravation seems to rear its head with technology. When computer things go wrong, there aren’t many times of blessing on in my house. I’m sure no one else has those problems.
So what does this have to do with purpose? I think everything. Our primary and singular purpose should be to bless the Lord because He is very great. No one is as great as our Lord. There are good things, and there are great things. God is very great. We should bless Him.