There is a legend of a man who found the barn where Satan kept his seeds ready to be sown in the human heart and on finding the seeds of discouragement more numerous than others, learned that those seeds could be made to grow almost anywhere.

When Satan was questioned, he reluctantly admitted that there was one place in which he could never get them to thrive.

“And where is that?” asked the man.

Satan replied sadly, “In the heart of a grateful man.”

The psalmist realized that gratitude plays an essential part in true worship.

He sang praises to God at all times; often, in his darkest moments.

When in his despair he called on God, his praises soon mingled with his cries of anguish, showing the victory accomplished by his habitual thankfulness.

Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings.

Is it midnight in your experience?

Is it an interminable time since the gold and crimson hope died out in the west—and a seemingly longer interval before the hoped-for dawning of day?

Midnight! Still, dark, and eerie! It is time to pray! And it is time to sing!

Strange how prayer and singing open prison doors—but they do!

Do you need doors to be opened? Try prayer and singing; they go together! They work wonders!

When the heaven is black with wind, the thunder crackling over our heads, then we may join in the paean of the storm-spirits to Him whose pageant of power passes over the earth and harms us not in its march.

The choir of small birds, and night crickets, and all happy things, praise Him all the night long.

Not somehow, but triumphantly!