"I thank You, I thank You, Oh Lord I praise You..."
From the song, "All You Have Given," by David Willersdorf
"Enter His gates with thanksgiving; go into His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name."
PSALM 100:4 (NLT)
Genuine thanksgiving always leads to praise. If you are in a place in your life where you just cannot bring yourself to praise God, thanksgiving is the key. It is not the formula to entering the courts of God - Jesus is the only Way we can enter God's courts. But thanksgiving is the appetiser to get our hearts ready for the feast. It reminds us that there is a feast. Looking at what God has done always leads us to look to God for what He will do.
All of the Christian life is a response. We love because God first loved us. We praise God because He has revealed something of Himself to us for us to praise Him. We don't praise God to get anything; we praise God because He has already given. In this case, we praise God because of His greatest gift - that of the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ on our behalf. The sin that we were tarred with was lifted up on Jesus' shoulders. And we now stand free to praise God with untainted lips as our response to His great mercy.
If you are finding praise difficult, just let your mind wander back to the last good thing you can remember God doing in your life (I'm sure we can all find something!). Let this be your meditation, and out of thanking God it won't be long before you find the treasure of His praise in your heart.