Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
Notice the tense of this verse: my lips will praise you, not my lips do praise you because everything is fine. This is a decision made ahead of the feeling, in a place — the wilderness of Judah — that gave David nothing to be thankful for on the surface. He's not describing a mood. He's describing a conviction so solid it can hold weight before the circumstances agree with it.
Most of us wait for gratitude to arrive before we express it. This verse works backward — the praise comes first, because the thing being praised (steadfast love) was never actually in question, even when everything else was.
You don't have to feel like praising anything today. But it's worth asking what David saw that made the love worth naming even in a dry, hostile place. Whatever that was, it wasn't dependent on his morning going well.
If gratitude in your life has always waited for good news first, it's worth wondering whether something is actually worth naming before that.
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.