Psalm 103: bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget
A devotion on Psalm 103, David's song of gratitude, on remembering what God has done and resting in a compassion that knows you are made of dust.
Psalm 103:1–5Psalm 103:8–14Psalm 103:1Psalm 103:2Psalm 103:8Psalm 103:10Psalm 103:12Psalm 103:14Exodus 34:6
Psalm 103 is a psalm of pure gratitude, and it begins with a man talking to himself. Bless the LORD, O my soul. David is not addressing a crowd. He is rousing his own heart, calling every part of himself to attention, because he knows how easy it is to receive good things from God and then forget where they came from.
That is the quiet warning inside this joyful psalm: do not forget. Forgetting is not usually a decision. It is what happens when you stop naming what God has done. So David names it. He forgives, He heals, He redeems, He crowns, He satisfies. Then he goes further back, to who God is in Himself: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, full of loving devotion. And he ends with something almost tender. God knows what we are made of. He remembers that we are dust. This devotion is an invitation to remember, out loud, before you forget.
The passage
Bless the LORD, O my soul; all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds— He who forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit and crowns you with loving devotion and compassion, who satisfies you with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
— Psalm 103:1–5
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. He will not always accuse us, nor harbor His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins or repaid us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.
— Psalm 103:8–14
David preaches to himself first
The psalm opens with a command, and the person being commanded is the psalmist. Bless the LORD, O my soul. To bless God does not mean to give Him something He lacks. It means to speak well of Him, to praise Him for who He is and what He has done, with your whole self behind the words.
Notice the phrase “all that is within me” (Psalm 103:1). David is not content with a polite thank you. He is calling his mind, his memory, his affections, his will, every part, to join in. Gratitude that stays in the head is thin. Gratitude that gets into the whole person changes how you walk through a day.
You may not feel like blessing the LORD this morning. David may not have either. That is why he tells his soul to do it rather than waiting for the soul to volunteer.
Forgetting is the real danger
The second verse names the problem the whole psalm is trying to solve: “do not forget all His kind deeds” (Psalm 103:2). Not one kind deed. All of them. Forgetting is not dramatic. It does not feel like rebellion. It feels like an ordinary Tuesday in which you simply do not think about what God has done, and then another, and then a month of them.
So David does the one thing that stops forgetting. He lists. Forgives. Heals. Redeems. Crowns. Satisfies. Each verb is a memory. Each one is something God has done that David refuses to let slide out of view.
Two of these deserve a careful word. He forgives all your iniquities, and that is the foundation of everything else in the psalm. And He heals all your diseases. Christians hold this as true of God’s care over the whole of a person and finally of the resurrection, when every disease is gone for good. It is not a formula that guarantees a particular outcome in this life, and it is not medical advice. It is David’s confession that every healing he has ever known came from the LORD’s hand, and that the LORD’s hand is where all healing will finally come from.
Compassionate, gracious, slow to anger
Verse 8 is not original to David. It is a quotation. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God passed by him and proclaimed His own name: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). Those words echo through the rest of the Old Testament. Prophets and psalmists return to them the way you return to the one thing you know is true about someone.
David quotes them here because they explain the kind deeds. God forgives and heals and redeems because that is who He is. Then David adds three lines of relief. “He has not dealt with us according to our sins” (Psalm 103:10). If He had, none of us would be standing. But He is slow to anger, and He does not hold on to it.
As far as the east is from the west
The psalm then reaches for the biggest distances it can find. As high as the heavens are above the earth, that is how great His loving devotion is. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). East and west never meet. You can travel east forever and never arrive at west. That is the picture David chooses for how far your sins have been taken.
This is fully true in Christ. The forgiveness David sang about was already real for him, and it is complete for you because Jesus bore those transgressions and rose again. When your own memory of past sin comes back, this verse is the answer. God has not kept them close. He has removed them, and the distance is not measurable.
He remembers that we are dust
The psalm ends its middle section with a line that is almost unbearably kind. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. And why? “For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14).
God is not surprised by your weakness. He made you from the ground and He remembers it, even when you forget. When you fail again, He does not react with shock. He reacts with the compassion of a father who knows exactly how small his child is. Fearing Him, in this psalm, is not being afraid of Him. It is taking Him seriously enough to bring your dust to Him rather than hiding it.
Something to do today
Before anything else this morning, or before sleep tonight, write down five kind deeds of God from your own life. Be specific: not a general sense that He has been good, but the actual things. Then read Psalm 103:1–5 aloud and put your list where David’s list is. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget these.
If you want to keep going, memorize verse 8. It is short, it is God’s own description of Himself, and it will come back to you on the day you most need it.
A question to sit with
What has God done for you that you have quietly stopped thanking Him for?
A prayer
Father, I bless You with all that is within me, and I ask You to wake the parts of me that have gone quiet. I have forgotten so many of Your kind deeds. Bring them back to my mind today. Thank You for forgiving all my iniquities, for redeeming my life, for crowning me with a love I did not earn. You are compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and You have put my sins as far from me as the east is from the west. You know I am dust. Have compassion on me the way a father does, and teach my soul to bless You. Amen.
Take this psalm into your prayers this week, read it with the Psalms around it, and bring your gratitude to your local church, where God’s people bless the LORD together and help each other not to forget.