Psalm 9:1-4 “I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High. My enemies turn back; they stumble and perish before you. For you have upheld my right and my cause, sitting enthroned as the righteous judge.”

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David wrote these words to be sung somberly and mournfully.  To the tune of “The Death of a Son.” It could have been written in response to the death of his first son by Bathsheba was dead and he had fallen into despair.  These words were sung in response to heavy grief.  Things were not going well.  Times were tough.  There was discord in his Kingdom.  It was not to be a light and airy piece about shouting from the roof tops the praise to God.  Life while comfortable, was full of disappointment and unrealized expectations. To borrow a line from a 60’s TV show, “Gloom, despair, excessive misery, if it were not for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” 2020 and 2021 have not been the best for us all.  Masks, shots, and social distancing seems to have taken the zest from life.

Yet today, I will not be overcome by the dirge of the world and simply “give thanks with all my heart, for all that God has done.  I will sing the praises of God.  I will keep on keeping on; always looking forward and not back.