I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
– Psalm 146:2
I love this verse in part because of a hymn written by Isaac Watts in the early 18th century based on this psalm. The hymn starts this way. Listen to these lines. “I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath and when my voice is lost in death, praise shall employ my nobler powers. My days of praise shall ne’er be passed while life, and thought, and being last, or immortality endures.” Did you hear that? It’s exactly what Psalm 146:2 is saying. “I’ll praise the Lord as long as I live.” Isaac Watt writes, “I’ll praise my maker while I’ve breath.”
Psalm 146:2 Encourages Us to Everlasting Praise
But then Psalm 146:2 goes on to say, “I’ll sing praises to God while I have my being.” And the reality is, even when we no longer have breath, even when we’re no longer alive on this earth, we’ll still have being.
Jesus is the resurrection and the life. We have eternal life in him. So Isaac Watts writes, “And when my voice is lost in death,” I don’t have voice in this world anymore. “Praise shall employ my nobler powers.” What a picture. I’m going to still be praising God even when my voice is lost in death. And then he writes, “My days of praise shall never be passed while life, and thought, and being last or immortality endures.”
In other words, I’m never ever, ever, ever going to stop praising God. Even when I don’t have breath anymore. I’ll still be praising God as long as I have my being, which by God’s grace through Jesus, I will have my being with him for all of eternity, for enduring immortality. And for all of that immortality, I will praise his name. We will praise his name as long as we live and even when we die.
Psalm 146:2 Encourages Us to Praise God for His Gift of Eternal Life
Oh God, we praise you today because you’re worthy of our praise today. You are the author of our breath, so we praise you with our breath. Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord. We have breath. We live to enjoy and exalt you in your name to give you praise. And God, we pray for each other. Pray in each of our lives that as long as we have breath here, we will spend our breath praising you.
God, we pray for persevering faith all the way to the end, for persevering praise all the way to the moment we last breathe on this earth and in the moment after we last breathe on this earth. May praise employ our nobler powers. May you get glory in my death, in our death as we continue to praise you far beyond when this life and our breath here are gone.
Jesus, we praise you for eternal life. And we say today in prayer, you’re worthy of eternal, everlasting, never-ending, enduring throughout all of time, praise. And God, we want the nations to praise you with us, all of them to be around your throne that day just as you’ve ordained. So we praise, spend our lives, spend our breath here for the spread of your praise to all the nations. Let all the nations praise you as a result of our lives and your church spreading your grace and your glory in the world today.
Praying for the Bouyei People
We pray for the Bouyei people. God bring them around your throne. Bring them to praise your name, Jesus. Bring them to enjoy and exalt you God, in life and in death. We pray for the Bouyei people and for thousands of other people groups like them, that they would praise you as their maker while they have breath. And when their voice is lost in death, that praise would employ their nobler powers. Oh God, Lord Jesus, we praise you now with our breath. And we look forward to the day when even our breath is gone and we don’t stop praising you. In Jesus name, we praise. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
