Have you ever noticed that as soon as you decide to do right, things start going wrong? It seems that sometimes when trouble comes, it comes in a BIG way! David said in Ps. 34:19, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous..." David knew a little something about trouble. In fact, he wrote Psalm 34 when he had been seized by the Philistines at Gath. Does Gath sound familiar? It should. The great giant Goliath whom David slew was from Gath. He had killed their champion and now they are wanting to kill him! So, like us many times, not long after his big TRIUMPH David found himself in big TROUBLE!
So what did David do? What was going through his mind? Well, he tells us what he did and what we should do when trouble comes. Psalm 34:1 - "I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.." "You are going to do what, David?" David said, "I will bless the LORD..." David didn't say he FELT like blessing the Lord. Sometimes it takes an act of the will to do what is right. Sometimes it takes an act of the will to go on to church even when you don't feel like it. Sometimes it takes an act of the will to read your Bible and pray even when you don't feel like it.
If you are like me, when you are down you want everyone else to be down with you. Not David. When he was down he encouraged others. He encouraged them to praise the Lord, too! (v.3) "O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together." The word "magnify" means to enlarge something. David was saying, "Let's start magnifying the Lord. We cannot make the Lord any bigger than He already is, but we can start seeing Him bigger than anything else in our life."
Are you surrounded by trouble, today? Decide to start blessing the Lord. Get back to church. Get back to your Bible and begin magnifying Him!