Generational Praise

¹ A Psalm of Praise, of David.
I will extol You, my God, O King,
And I will bless Your name forever and ever.
² Every day I will bless You,
And I will praise Your name forever and ever.
³ Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised,
And His greatness is unsearchable.
⁴ One generation shall praise Your works to another,
And shall declare Your mighty acts.
⁵ On the glorious splendor of Your majesty
And on Your wonderful works, I will meditate.
⁶ Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts,
And I will tell of Your greatness.
⁷ They shall eagerly utter the memory of Your abundant goodness
And will shout joyfully of Your righteousness.
⁸ The LORD is gracious and merciful;
Slow to anger and great in lovingkindness.
⁹ The LORD is good to all,
And His mercies are over all His works.
¹⁰ All Your works shall give thanks to You, O LORD,
And Your godly ones shall bless You (Psa 145:1-10).

I like this psalm. All of it, actually. I like things like "The LORD sustains all who fall" (v 14) and "The LORD is near to all who call upon Him" (v 18). Good stuff. I was struck, though, with this particular portion: "One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts." Yes, God is good. Yes, He is "highly to be praised." Yes, His works declare His glory. But this notion of generational praise is fascinating.

We parents have a duty to teach our kids. It's important. And it's way too neglected today. Too many parents think they can hand their kids off to schools -- even good schools -- and Sunday School or church and get them educated. But the Bible doesn't list schools and churches as the primary party responsible for teaching kids. It's parents. In fact, it is, first, fathers.

Okay, okay, so we know we have to teach our kids. So we send them to church and school and we monitor it carefully and we see that they learn the necessary facts and we teach them to respect authority and honor their parents and reverence God and all this good stuff. But do we teach them to praise? Do we teach them, by open example and explicit effort, to worship God?

According to David, if "one generation shall praise Your works to another", the result is God's mighty acts are declared and "Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts." Word gets out. God's Name is proclaimed. God's people bless Him. It is contagious.

We're pretty good at teaching our kids to complain about the political mess or the state of the church or whatever other pet peeve we might have. Today, let's see if we can work on teaching our kids to praise God's works. Doing it yourself would be a good start. Doing it explicitly with your children is a good thing. God is certainly praiseworthy. This should be easy. It might even become a habit.