'Praise in the Morning and Praise at Night'

“It is good to praise the LORD… proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night.” (Psalm 92:1–2)

Some psalms shout with trumpets. This one whispers with wisdom. At first glance, Psalm 92 reads like a standard hymn of praise—nothing unusual. But then the timing catches your eye: morning and night. Light and dark. Clarity and confusion.

We’re quick to give thanks in the morning—when blessings are obvious, we feel refreshed and energized, we smell the coffee brewing, and the challenges of the world look possible. Morning gratitude is natural. It flows.

But night thanks? That’s different. That’s when the pantry of blessings feels a little bare. That’s when the prayer requests and concerns list stretches longer than the praise list.

And yet the psalm invites us into a deeper thanksgiving, not rooted in what we see, but in who God is. Morning says: “Thank You for what’s right in front of me.” Night says: “Thank You that You’re still faithful, even when I can’t see anything at all.”

This isn’t just poetic contrast; it’s lived history. Few stories capture “night gratitude” more than the Pilgrims, a community who quite literally walked into darkness with only a flicker of hope. James 1:2–4 calls us to “consider it pure joy” when facing trials—not because trials feel good, but because God works through them. The Pilgrims understood that well.

These Separatists fled England in 1607 to build a new community in Holland. They faced similar persecution there, so 13 years later they set sail from Plymouth in September 1620. Their journey was rough, to put it mildly.  There were 102 passengers crowded into an under-provisioned ship.  The Mayflower was a small wooden boat that bobbed like a cork in the North Atlantic Sea. It took them two months at sea, plus nearly a month searching the coast before they landed – in January!!!  The brutal New England winter waiting for them.

William Bradford described their landing with awe and sorrow: no friends to welcome them, no homes to shelter them, no inns to refresh their weather-beaten bodies—only harsh, violent winter winds and an unknown wilderness. The Wampanoag people helped them survive, but even so, half of their number died that first winter.

Yet after enduring more darkness than most of us will ever know, Bradford declared a day of Thanksgiving. They had walked through a long night trusting in God’s faithfulness when they couldn’t see any blessings.  Then, at last, they saw a glimmer of morning.

Romans 8:28 tells us that, “All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.”  It does not promise that everything will be easy or painless. It does promise that God is faithfully at work.  The Pilgrims loved God and knew beyond a doubt that God had called them for His purpose of establishing a community to worship God in freedom.

So, if this year has felt more “nighttime” than “morning” for you, take heart. Psalm 92 whispers a truth you may need more than ever. Your thanksgiving in the night times of life count, perhaps more than the easy thanks we offer in the daylight. In the morning or night, clarity or confusion—God is worthy of our thanks and praise.  

You might show up to the Thanksgiving gathering saying, “This has been a crazy day – the dog threw up, I cut my hand peeling the potatoes and had to get stitches, the kids were at each other’s throats, but at least we are here.”  This may have been a hard year for you and your family.  Like many, you can count the blessings, but you have an equal number of times where you were just trusting God’s faithfulness because you didn’t know how things would turn out.  Your thanksgiving, offered through tears or through joy, is precious in His sight.

Blessings to all,

Jonathan