How Do we Bless the Lord – Psalms?

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Avila123

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Whilst reading the Psalms the phrase “Bless the Lord” caused me to wonder how I could bless the Lord. The Psalms I noticed were

Psalm 103
v1 “Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name!”
v2 “Bless the LORD, O my soul and forget not all his benefits,”
v20 22 all start “Bless the LORD,” O you his angels, then hosts and then all his works

Psalm 104
V1 “Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD, my God, how great you are! Clothed in majesty and splendour,”

Psalm 134
V1 “Come, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD, who stand by night in the house of the LORD!”

I also noticed other Psalms said give thanks or praise, so there must be a reason for the phrase “Bless the LORD”.

My question is if all good things and blessings come from Him, and all that is right and good in us, is from Him, how can we bless Him?

It is just that I have been wondering at how sad and hurt God (who is love beyond our imagining) must feel when he sees the broken and damaged souls refusing His healing love. It just seems impossible to find that something extra to give Him some gladness and ease His sorrow. My first thought was “I can bless God”, quickly followed by “But it comes from Him, so I can’t do that” and “It is presumptuous, God needs nothing from us” and “there is something wrong with this train of thought, is it leading me to a wrong place.”

Any ideas and thoughts appreciated as it will help me work through this.

PS. I did search CAF but couldn’t find any previous Threads on this.
 
The Latin word for “bless” simply means to “speak well.” (And conversely, the word for curse means to speak badly). Hence, when God blesses us, since he creates by a word, he speaks his goodness onto us–he communicates his very self to us. And when we bless him, we speak well to him, we praise the goodness he has poured out on us by recognizing it and returning it to him. That is why we can say that our efforts to pray and help one another bless God, because we are speaking his goodness.

-ACEGC
 
I think it is along the lines of thanking and praising the Lord when we are blessing him. We hold him in high esteem, we are faithful to him alone, and we give him thanks and praise for his great glory.
 
Avila123 said:
PS. I did search CAF but couldn’t find any previous Threads on this.
Click to expand...
I found a few CAF threads on this. Here is an old one (2008):
How do you bless God?
The above thread references CCC 1078:
1078 Blessing is a divine and life-giving action, the source of which is the Father; his blessing is both word and gift (eu-logia, bene-dictio). When applied to man, the word “blessing” means adoration and surrender to his Creator in thanksgiving.
CCC 1078 then references CCC 2626:
2626 Blessing expresses the basic movement of Christian prayer: it is an encounter between God and man. In blessing, God’s gift and man’s acceptance of it are united in dialogue with each other. The prayer of blessing is man’s response to God’s gifts: because God blesses, the human heart can in return bless the One who is the source of every blessing.
and here are two more CAF threads that seem to answer the question:
Bless God or God blesses?
How can humans bless God?
 
Thank you all for being so helpful. I shall spend a little time reflecting on your answers and considering how I can offer a bit more.

:flowers:
 
Praying. Because by praying we are recognizing his presence and his love, and in effect are thanking him for who he is. Or else we wouldn’t be praying.

Assuming one has a correct understanding of who God is.
 
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