The psalmist confidently says, ‘I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.’ (Ps 146:2) This may seem a bold thing to say, for life is not always easy, yet it reminds us that praise is a choice of the will, not a whim or feeling.
Making vows to God is a serious thing (see Eccl 5:4-6, Matt 5:33-37), and Jephthah reminds us of the dangers of making rash vows (Judges 11:29-40). Nonetheless, praise has to be a determined choice of the will, and Hannah shows us that it is possible to make vows and keep them. (1 Sam 1-2). The psalmist reminds himself of many reasons to praise God (Ps 146:6-9) and we too should not be afraid to ‘count our blessings… name them one by one’ so that we can make good on this promise to praise God throughout the whole of our lives. Ps 76:11 reminds us to ‘make vows to the Lord and fulfil them’ and Paul gives us an example of this in Acts 18:18 when we read that he had his hair cut off at Cenchrae because of a vow he had taken. What matters is that we learn to do the things we promise and that praise should become our determined habit and our response of choice.