Praise Ye the Lord

When you need to remember — that You're still my Shepherd.

You can spend a whole long stretch in the laments — in the depths, by the rivers of Babylon, in the cave, in the desolate room — and arrive here, at the very last prayer in the whole book, with the question: is it allowed to just praise? After everything that has happened — after all the questions you have not gotten answers to, after the grief that is still real — is unmixed praise honest right now? You do not need permission. The whole book lands here on purpose: 149 prayers, every honest emotion, all of them resolving into one final word — let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

This is the doxology. The very last entry in the book. After every lament, every imprecation, every confession, every cave, every rivers-of-Babylon grief, every desolate stretch, the people of God arrive here. The endpoint of all of it is praise. That is on purpose. He starts with where: "Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary, praise Him in the heavens above." On earth and in heaven at the same time. Local and cosmic. Both directions count. Then with what reason: "Praise Him for His mighty acts, praise Him for His excellent greatness." Mighty acts — the receipts of what He has done. Excellent greatness — Who He is in Himself. Both grounds are valid for praise. Then with how — and this section is full of instruments, almost mischievously: "Praise Him with the blast of the trumpet, praise Him with the harp and the lyre. Praise Him with the timbrel and dancing, praise Him with strings and with pipes. Praise Him with the loud crashing cymbals, praise Him with the resounding cymbals." Trumpet, harp, lyre, timbrel, dancing, strings, pipes — and then the cymbals, twice, getting louder. The praise is allowed to be loud. It is allowed to crash. The book did not end on a whisper. Then with who: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord, praise the Lord!" Everything. Every breathing thing. The category cannot be narrowed. If you have breath today, you are included. That is the whole prayer. Six verses. The entire arc of human prayer — every grief, every fear, every doubt, every imprecation, every confession across one hundred forty-nine prayers — arriving at one line: if you are breathing, praise.

• Right now, take one full breath in and out, then say out loud — even quiet — "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord, praise the Lord!" • Write this down: "What grief or unfinished thing have I been waiting to be 'resolved' before I would let myself land in praise?" • Repeat this line when the day flattens you back into silence: "Praise Him for His mighty acts, praise Him for His excellent greatness."

Stop. Breathe. Let the truth that the whole book ends here — every lament, every cave, every Babylon — settle into the part of you that has been waiting for permission to praise, then tell Him exactly what you want to praise Him for at the end of it all — out loud if you can.

God, You let the whole book end here — after all the laments, all the imprecations, all the depths, all the desolations, all the questions — at praise. Praise You in Your sanctuary; praise You in the heavens above — on earth and in heaven, at the same time, by the same mouth. Praise You for Your mighty acts — the receipts of what You have done in my life and in the lives of Your people — and praise You for Your excellent greatness, for who You are when nothing has happened yet. Let the trumpet, the harp, the timbrel, the strings, the pipes, the loud crashing cymbals — and my one ordinary voice — all do the same job, even if mine is the smallest one in the room. I have breath today; I am included — let me actually use it. You're still my Shepherd.

If you have breath, you are part of the final word.