My mouth is filled with your praise and with your glory all the day.
– Psalm 71:8
Is that not a great way to approach your day? To fill your mouth with praise and the glory of God all day long. I love this verse in part because of its context. We might read a verse like that and think, Oh, that’s when a day is going really well. Just praising God all day long. You’re like on a mountaintop, things going well, thanking God for all his grace in all these different ways.
Psalm 71:8 challenges us to live praise-filled lives.
But that’s not the context here. Instead, the psalmist is struggling, is suffering at the hands of those who are unjustly coming at him. And he’s saying in verse four and five… “Rescue me, oh God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel for you, oh Lord, are my hope, my trust, oh Lord, from my youth upon you I’ve leaned from before my birth, you took me from my mother’s womb.” So he says, my praise is continually of you.
And then you get down to verse eight… “My mouth is filled with your praise, with your glory all the day.” And in light of that, I just want to encourage you to live that way today. Suppose you’re listening to this at night. To live this way tomorrow, to go to bed this way and rise up and live this way. Just what would it look like for you and me to approach this day or the next day and say, my mouth is going to be filled with your praise all day long with your glory all the day?
Yes, if things are going well, praising God for all of his grace in different ways. And at the same time, if things are not going well, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, facing challenges in any way to fill your day with praise all day long, just praising God with seeing and savoring and exalting God in all of his glory. What a good God-centered joy-giving perspective-changing praise-filled way to live your day.
Psalm 71:8 reminds us to ask God for the strength to praise him no matter what.
Let’s pray that God would help us to do this. God, we pray that Psalm 71:8 would mark our day today. That our mouth would be filled with your praise, with your glory all day long. God, may it be so. We’re listening to this at night as we go to bed and we wake up the next morning. God, we pray that you would help us to, Psalm 71:6, praise you continually as our hope and our trust and our strength, and our joy and our help, especially in times of trouble. You are to us, Psalm 71:3, a rock of refuge to which we may continually come, our fortress we can continually hide in. So God help us to do that, to continually come to you and to continually praise you all day long. May your glory fill our day.
And God, we pray that as the overflow of this, you would help us to praise you before others. God, we pray that we would brag on you today and tell others who you are and how you love us. And God, we pray that you help us to build up brothers and sisters in Christ by pointing them to your glory today. I pray you’d help us to lead people to Jesus by pointing them to your glory today.
Prayer for the Manga Kanuri People
And God, we pray for those who have never heard of your glory in the face of Jesus. Specifically today for the Manga Kanuri people of Nigeria. Over a million Manga Kanuri men, women, and children. Most of whom have little to no knowledge of your glory in your son and his sacrifice for our sins to make it possible for us to walk with you all day long in your glory and to enjoy you for eternal glory. God, we pray that the Manga Kanuri people would be reached with the good news of your glory. And you would use our lives and our resources as your church toward that end.
Lord, help us, we pray, to live out Psalm 71:8 today. That we might say at the end of the day, my mouth has been filled with your praise and with your glory all the day. God made this mark our every day for you are worthy of praise all day long. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
