Magnify

 December 14, 2021

“I will praise the name of God with a song, And will magnify Him with thanksgiving.”

—Psalm 69:30 

The sun is thousands of times the size of the earth, yet standing upon the latter, I can obscure the sun with a quarter, if held close enough to my eye. It’s not the size, but the proximity that determines what I see. A mountain in the distance looks quite small; the closer I get, the larger it looms.

If in the midst of earthly problems, they seem bigger than God, it’s because I’m closer to them than to him. If I want them to assume their true size, I need to get closer to God than to the problem. According to this psalm, the best way to do that is through the giving of thanks. Thanks and praise magnify God; ie, they don’t make him any bigger, but they put things in their proper perspective. The closer I get to God, the bigger he seems, and the smaller the problems. 

I’ve never known it to fail—praise and thanksgiving, even when I don’t feel like it (or perhaps especially when I don’t feel like it), bring me closer to God, which in turn, puts life’s problems in perspective. It’s a win-win.