{MAGNIFY}

"I will praise the name of  God with a song; I will magnify Him with thanksgiving." Ps. 69:30 ESV

I enjoy looking up the definition of a word. Even if I have an idea of what a word means, I still take the time to look it up because it may help me to see something from a diffent perspective.

Take "magnify" for example. It is most often understood as praise. In fact, if you look up the definition for magnify at merriam-webster.com the first thing you'll read is "extol" or "laud". I know that when I have an attitude of thanksgiving it's easy to praise God. Even though this validates what I already know, it was the other part of magnify that got my attention. Magnify also means to "increase" or "enlarge".

This made me pause and think. Is it possible that I can increase God with thanksgiving?

To help "enlarge" my understanding I looked up the original Hebrew word for magnify. The word is "gadal" which means "to grow, become great or important, promote, make powerful, praise, magnify, do great things."

Now I'm not saying that we can literally make God bigger, but we can increase our understanding, perspective, and revelation of who He is in our life.

Thanksgiving can be the key that opens the door that gives God the opportunity to move in our lives. When we offer thanksgiving we actually humble ourselves and make  God bigger than our problem or situation. When Jesus fed the multitudes he took what was given him, looked up to heaven, and gave thanks (Matthew 14:19). He knew that God was bigger than the problem.

As a thought, maybe thanksgiving is not for God as much it is for us so that we can experience an increase of His presence, power, provision, and phavor in our lives.