Praise the Lord!
From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised.Psalm 113:3
The scripture verse for the month from Psalm 113 sets the stage for living each day with praise and thanksgiving in our hearts. Living in northern Europe in summertime would have been the Psalmist's delight with the generally warm and sunny weather and especially the long daylight hours! In fact within the Arctic circle Gods praises would never cease in summer given the setting of the sun is also its rising again! How beautiful it would be if we could continuously sing God's praises like that!
This Psalm in a sense bridges Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel 2:1–10 with Mary's Magnificat in Luke"1:46–55. God of the cosmos is also God of the anthropos, the individual. The Creator of the universe is primarily concerned with the well-being of the created order, but even more so with that of each human being, and particularly the weakest, the most insignificant and the most marginalised ones. God exalts them to places of prominence and prosperity. That grace and power is manifested among other things, in barren women being blessed into becoming beautiful mothers. Like a mother hen broods over her chicks so does our loving God want to make sure that we're safe and sound. The way we respond to such loving care is with our praises — both with our lips as well as in our doing. In fact, as Psalm 22:2 points out, God is enthroned upon the praises of the people. The point is that God, through the abundant grace which we have received, does incredible and marvellous things for those in need and in distress. That is why our God is truly worthy of our praise! The entire Psalm is sandwiched between the command to "Praise the Lord".
August is still summertime and vacation-time. As most of us continue in the holiday spirit this month and some of us continue with our day to day chores, may each one of us have the time and opportunity to discern God's grace in our lives, to know that none of us are ever outside the purview of that grace, and to reflect upon how we are held in the palm of God's hand, and is so doing, to give our Lord the praise that is due, especially at this time of long and warm daylight hours! "From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised!"