What is a grateful praise? This is an act of responding to God’s goodness for how far the Lord God has been good to you, an act of appreciation for how God has carried you on His shoulder to where you are at the moment.

Not everyone understands that it is the guidance of the Lord that has made us escape every route with traffic, danger, and death, and here we are, still breathing in the land of the living.

The way in which the Lord navigates us, His children, through the hurdles of life is so amazing and should not be taken for granted. One of the reasons the book of Psalms is outstanding is because of how the psalmists understood what it meant to be appreciative.

They understood that how they got to where they are is not by their power but by the mighty and outstretched hand of God that led the way for them and also the wondrous work of God in their lives. And because of this, they would not hesitate to give a grateful praise to the Lord.

This psalm talks about the positive experience of Israel in their early history and celebrates God’s faithfulness to His covenant with the people. And the people needed to REMEMBER to be faithful to God, who had never forgotten to be faithful to them.

Hence the reason he uses the word “Remember” in verse 5—he wanted to remind God’s people of His goodness, because what we do not know most of the time is that even though we do not remember, God does!

And the reason why God sees many people as ingrates today is because of how we only enjoy God’s blessings but never acknowledge God as the Owner of the blessings.

Hence the reason this word of God is coming to us this morning so that we may acclaim a grateful praise to the One who deserves it. For how God has been good to us. For how far He has brought us. For how He has led us through the valley of the shadow of death and here we are still standing.

The way God navigated us through the wilderness each day so that we are not stuck within the obstacles of the day is something worth praising God for. For if it had not been the Lord who is keeping our route safe, clearing the way for us, straightening crooked places for us.

Putting us under His wings so that we are covered and protected from the vultures of life, we possibly might have been eaten up, but God permitted no one to do us wrong, and for this reason we owe Him a grateful praise.

If you would not take my word for it, I believe many of us would have had experience of what it means to lose your way. Perhaps sometimes when you do not know where you are going, when the connection on your phone is bad and you could not connect to your GPS.

Perhaps you started well with your GPS but lost connection along the way, or when there is a glitch on your phone and your GPS started malfunctioning. That alone can make someone spend more time trying to navigate your way to your destination which most of the time ends in frustration.

But now think deeply on how you do not know what your day would be like. You do not know where the danger is ahead of you. You don’t know what is in the air you breathe in. You do not know what is in the food you’re eating. You don’t even know what would be the end of it all for you for the day.

However, God, who knows the end from the beginning, navigated you through the course of your journey and you are finishing each day without getting stuck in it. You go from one place to another, and God preserved you from all evil. He permitted no one, no virus, no disease, no sickness, no temptation to do you wrong as you walk through it all.

And for this reason you must give a grateful praise to the Lord because the same spot you were in, you passed through. Some have been there and they were no more. Some passed through but they have become casualties of war.

But God navigated you through it all and that is why you do not lose what belongs to you. You do not lose your mind. You do not lose your life. That is why you are still standing. Come on somebody, how you got here is by the help of Yahweh, and I want you to praise His name, for the enemies’ wish is to touch you, is to do you wrong, but God said, “No, I will keep you in peace because you trusted in Him.”

The enemies’ wish would continue to be to do you wrong, but God is navigating you through every trap set before you, and that is why we see no weapon formed against us has prospered because of how God has been good to us.

Somebody give God a grateful praise this morning, for what we are enjoying is not what money could buy. What you did not know, the curse you were not aware of, the trap you did not know was there, the forces of darkness that took over the course of the day.

But in the midst of all these, you did not crash in the midst of their traps set for you. You are here today because God is your navigator and has made you escape every evil traffic, evil occurrence, and more like it.

As you go this month, go with a heart of grateful praise to the One who leads you with His own GPS so that He may see you as one with a faithful heart and a grateful heart of praise. The more we appreciate God, the more He responds to us when we do not know what is ahead of us.

You do not know what is ahead of you this year but if you have a heart of grateful praise, The Divine Navigator would lead you through it all and it will end in praise for you.

Somebody, give God a grateful praise because only people of true faith will appreciate and seek God’s will and respond in grateful praise, but self-centered people will simply complain and suffer the result.