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549_A song from a grateful heart

Psalm 116 I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my pleas for mercy.
2 Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!”

5 Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
6 The Lord preserves the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
7 Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

8 For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling;
9 I will walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.

10 I believed, even when I spoke:
“I am greatly afflicted”;
11 I said in my alarm,
“All mankind are liars.”

12 What shall I render to the Lord
for all his benefits to me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord,
14 I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.

15 Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his saints.
16 O Lord, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your maidservant.
You have loosed my bonds.
17 I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving
and call on the name of the Lord.
18 I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people,
19 in the courts of the house of the Lord,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord!

In January 2010, after the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti, rescue workers searching through the rubble of a collapsed supermarket heard faint singing. After days of pulling out bodies, they had come across a survivor young woman named Ena Zizi. She had been trapped for seven days in total darkness, pinned by concrete. She was severely dehydrated and barely alive. Yet she was singing. Later, when they carried her out on a stretcher, she whispered, “God kept me alive. I was not alone in the dark.”

Psalm 116 is the song of someone who has been to the edge of despair and found that God was still there; the song of a soul that knows what it means to be heard and saved.

Psalm 116 is one of the Hallel Psalms (Psalms 113–118), hymns of praise sung by the Jewish people during their great festivals, especially the Passover. These songs rose up from grateful hearts to fill the temple courts. The Lord Jesus probably sang this psalm with His disciples on the night before His crucifixion, just before they went out to the Mount of Olives. Soon to face the anguish of Gethsemane and the agony of the cross, he deliberately joined in this psalm of deliverance and gratitude.

The psalm begins: “I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.” Our love for God is always a response to His love for us. We love him because he loved us-because he hears us when we cry out to him. This is not distant affection, but the grateful love of a heart that has prayed in desperation and experienced the deliverance of God.

At the tomb of Lazarus, the Lord declared, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me.” Jesus too was heard by His Father —not spared the suffering of death, but delivered through his resurrection. As Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, “God raised Him up, loosing the pains of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.” Psalm 116 is not only a personal song of thanksgiving but also a prophecy of Christ’s victory over death.

The psalmist reflects, “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord: ‘O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!’” Faith doesn’t mean the absence of fear — but the determination to cling to God through fear. The cry of the fearful soul to God becomes the doorway to deliverance.

And so he praises God: “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful.” These words describe God’s forgiving grace, His unwavering righteousness, and His tender mercy towards the weak and sinful. In humility, he says, “The Lord preserves the simple.” That word “simple” describes those who know they know nothing, who rely on God’s wisdom and strength rather than their own. God delights to save such. The psalmist declares, “When I was brought low, He saved me.”

And so he reminds himself, “Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.” For God is always good, and his past mercy teaches us to rest in his salvation.

And hence the psalmist is newly confident: “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” As God spoke to Abraham in Genesis 17: “I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless.” This involves consciously living in His presence — not just in moments of crisis but in the ordinary rhythm of life. It means shaping our decisions by the fear of God, living under his loving gaze each moment. Because he is the God of our salvation, we live as those who belong to him.

Looking back, the psalmist remembers the time of affliction, when he thought, “All men are liars.” That’s the language of disillusionment with human help. Yet he clung on in faith. The very opposite is true of Christ’s disciples, as 2 Corinthians 4:13–14 declares: “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus.” The psalmist’s words model every believer’s talk – to speak what we believe, in the light of Christ’s final victory.

The psalmist’s question is, “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me?” Nobody can repay grace. But the psalmist vows his devotion to the Lord: “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people.” The “cup of salvation” is his public thanksgiving before the congregation of the Lord. Gratitude that stays silent soon fades; gratitude that speaks becomes worship.

Then he speaks words of extreme tenderness: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” For mortals, death feels like an end, a loss. But to God, the death of those who belong to Him is precious — not because He delights in their pain, but because He treasures the homecoming of every soul that has walked on earth with him, and clung to him in humble love.

The psalmist’s identity is bound up with the Lord: “O Lord, I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds.” The Old Testament describes the servant who, when freed after six years of service, chooses to remain with his master out of love. The ear of such a servant was pierced as a mark of his voluntary devotion. This is what the psalmist means through his words, “You have freed me, and now I belong to You — not by obligation, but for the sake of love.” True gratitude culminates in joyful devotion.

And so the psalm ends in praise: “I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!” The psalm ends with Hallelujah — both a declaration and an invitation.

For the heart of gratitude to God turns its personal praise into public edification. Rather than keeping God’s goodness private, the worshipper draws others to praise God.

When grief tightens around our souls, when we feel weary and disillusioned and cynical, let us remember Psalm 116. When we remember what God has done for us in the past, we are encouraged to speak words of faith to our own heart, to lift our afflicted hearts to him. And as we draw near to him, let us vow to lift the cup of salvation before his people, saying, “He has heard me, and I will trust Him still.” This is the never-fading song of a trusting and thankful heart.