One time I heard someone share that they didn’t like spending time in the Psalms because it felt like David was always being negative and complaining about everything. I kind of agreed, but then I started thinking about it more. Don’t we all get like that? Life is a rollercoaster of ups and downs until we get to heaven. We have hard times, okay times, and great times when it feels like everything is going just the way we hoped.

Honestly, if I were a worship leader like David, I’d probably be writing songs about how hard things were too. Imagine this song: Jeesuuussss, my tire light just came onnnnnn…and I need to get gasssss, but it’s coooollld and I don’t want toooo!! Right? That’s so relatable. Even if everything is mostly fine in life, we all have moments throughout the day when we don’t want to do something because it’s hard.

I think we can easily get stuck in a routine of focusing on the hard things—everything that’s going wrong—thinking, “Of course this would happen to me.” But we actually have a perfect example of how to get out of that cycle, and it’s a biblical one: King David. He often told the Lord exactly how he was feeling—how hard his life was, how he felt forsaken or forgotten.
BUT—David always chose to turn himself toward praise. I don’t think this was easy for him. I doubt he went from grumpy to “Okay, time to praise God now!” in an instant. I imagine he had to will his soul to do it. He had to choose to wake up, put on his positive pants—probably a little snug some days—and praise the Lord in the midst of his mess.

One thing I love about David’s Psalms is how he writes as if he’s commanding his own soul to praise. In Psalm 63:5, I love the “I will” portion. I imagine David saying it even when he didn’t feel it: I WILL be fully satisfied. I don’t think he instantly felt satisfied—just like our problems rarely get fixed in a moment. I believe he was commanding, even prophesying: I WILL be satisfied, even if I’m not there right now. I WILL be satisfied in You, Lord. I will fix my gaze on You and choose to worship the Creator of the world instead of sitting in the pit I’m in or the hard thing I have to face.

If it were me, I’d have to force myself to sing a praise song about my circumstances. It might sound like: My tire lighhhht turnnned onn—good to know that it worksssss! Thank you, Lord, that I have money for gassss, and a coat and gloves for the colllllld!

Maybe you relate to this. Maybe you tend to focus on the negative, or feel like people are always out to get you. I want to encourage you today: command your soul to be satisfied in the Lord—even in the middle of the hard thing. Eventually, a super cool miracle may happen where you experience the Lord pulling you out of a pit.

Command your soul today: I WILL be satisfied!