I will praise ADONAI [the LORD] with my whole heart.
I will tell about all Your wonders. Psalm 9:2[1], TLV

Even the Little Things . . . How do we praise the LORD with our whole heart? We tell everyone about His wonders, definitely. For David, the author of this psalm, his praise begins not with today’s verse, but with this “verse”: “For the music director, to the tune of “The Death of the Son,” a psalm of David.”

There are 66 books in the Bible. The question of how many chapters and verses gets a bit more complicated, especially for the Hebrew text, and especially in the book of Psalms. Technically, there are no verses in the original text, not even punctuation. So when a “verse” is scribed in the text it is part of the text.

Why? Because in Jewish tradition, the ascriptions to many Psalms are treated as independent verses or parts of the subsequent verses, whereas established Christian practice treats each Psalm ascription as independent and unnumbered — more like a title. That means the original text increases the number of “verses” by one hundred and sixteen.

What if we paused .. .

I was thinking about that. One hundred and sixteen more verses all because the scribes — and perhaps the authors themselves — deemed these ascriptions/titles/instructions as important. What they are to us are profound bits of history and insights into the lives of people and their faith journeys. I’m thinking, we might want to give them a bit more attention.

Don’t you want to know the origins of the tune, “The Death of the Son?” Was it a prophetic melody driven by the Holy Spirit? Or was it a tribute to a beloved child lost too soon. Perhaps both. Yet, even in this melody, there is worship.

Meditating on our life, the melodies and history of God’s wonders in our journey is part of worshipping and praising God with all our heart. It requires being in the moment, the holy moment with Him. They direct us to those precious eternal moments where He shows us amazing things we can’t even explain. Those moments we carry or perhaps we journal. Maybe with just one line, “The Death of the Son” we remember that eternal moment and praise Him over and over again — even in the pain.

Today, my friends, find a purposeful moment to just be. Be with Him. Let Him show you His wonders. Write it somewhere, even if it’s in the margins of your Bible. Who knows, one day someone could read that sentence and marvel at what God did in your life.