“Let all that I am praise the Lord. O Lord my God, how great you are! You are robed with honor and majesty. You are dressed in a robe of light. You stretch out the starry curtain of the heavens; you lay out the rafters of your home in the rain clouds. You make the clouds your chariot; you ride upon the wings of the wind. The winds are your messengers; flames of fire are your servants. You placed the world on its foundation so it would never be moved. You clothed the earth with floods of water, water that covered even the mountains. At your command, the water fled; at the sound of your thunder, it hurried away. Mountains rose and valleys sank to the levels you decreed. Then you set a firm boundary for the seas, so they would never again cover the earth. You make springs pour water into the ravines, so streams gush down from the mountains. They provide water for all the animals, and the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds nest beside the streams and sing among the branches of the trees. You send rain on the mountains from your heavenly home, and you fill the earth with the fruit of your labor. You cause grass to grow for the livestock and plants for people to use. You allow them to produce food from the earth— wine to make them glad, olive oil to soothe their skin, and bread to give them strength. The trees of the Lord are well cared for— the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. There the birds make their nests, and the storks make their homes in the cypresses. High in the mountains live the wild goats, and the rocks form a refuge for the hyraxes. You made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to set. You send the darkness, and it becomes night, when all the forest animals prowl about. Then the young lions roar for their prey, stalking the food provided by God. At dawn they slink back into their dens to rest. Then people go off to their work, where they labor until evening. O Lord, what a variety of things you have made! In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your creatures. Here is the ocean, vast and wide, teeming with life of every kind, both large and small. See the ships sailing along, and Leviathan, which you made to play in the sea. They all depend on you to give them food as they need it. When you supply it, they gather it. You open your hand to feed them, and they are richly satisfied. But if you turn away from them, they panic. When you take away their breath, they die and turn again to dust. When you give them your breath, life is created, and you renew the face of the earth. May the glory of the Lord continue forever! The Lord takes pleasure in all he has made! The earth trembles at his glance; the mountains smoke at his touch. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will praise my God to my last breath! May all my thoughts be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. Let all sinners vanish from the face of the earth; let the wicked disappear forever. Let all that I am praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!”
Psalms 104:1-35 NLT
Continuing in theme from Psalm 103, Psalm 104 has the same phraseology that praise ought to be a holistic endeavor of the human spirit. In The Romans, it is noted that this is the obvious starting orientation of all creatures. It is noted that in order for one to refrain from praising God, they would have to literally restrain themselves from doing so. Paul uses the term, “suppression,” which is likened to the idea of keeping something under the surface of water that is trying to float. So too the psalmist speaks of the obviousness of the created order. He speaks of the dependency on a creator to fine tune the universe. He speaks of the fact that entropy is a certainty no matter the might, size, intellect or power of any given thing. As he observes the natural order of the world, he easily discerns the hand of a God who is majestic in his design and agency. This is a source of joy. It is fundamental to his clarity of thoughts and provides the filter by which other thoughts should follow. Paul, again, justifies this conclusion when he claims that those who suppressed the truth about God, and refused to acknowledge him as God, necessarily destroyed their own lives by becoming lost in confusion about their very natures. It is therefore no small thing to say, “let all that I am praise the Lord.” Not only is he deserving of it, but without this acknowledgement, our very lives become at stake.
JOSH McGARY.COM 