Author: Heather Davis

C. H. Spurgeon on Psalm 119:53

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

I simply had to share this insight from Charles Spurgeon, taken from his Morning and Evening Devotions.  If time allows, I may add my own meditation later in the week, but for now just enjoy this wonderful reflection on verse 53!

As an aside:  If you have a smart phone or tablet, the book is public domain and many copies are free to download.  I highly recommend it as a family or personal devotional. In our family, we read this together than everyone has their own, personal time with the Lord and His word separately.

Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law.

Psalms 119:53

“My soul, feelest thou this holy shuddering at the sins of others? for otherwise thou lackest inward holiness. David’s cheeks were wet with rivers of waters because of prevailing unholiness; Jeremiah desired eyes like fountains that he might lament the iniquities of Israel, and Lot was vexed with the conversation of the men of Sodom. Those upon whom the mark was set in Ezekiel’s vision, were those who sighed and cried for the abominations of Jerusalem.

It cannot but grieve gracious souls to see what pains men take to go to hell. They know the evil of sin experimentally, and they are alarmed to see others flying like moths into its blaze. Sin makes the righteous shudder, because it violates a holy law, which it is to every man’s highest interest to keep; it pulls down the pillars of the commonwealth. Sin in others horrifies a believer, because it puts him in mind of the baseness of his own heart: when he sees a transgressor he cries with the saint mentioned by Bernard, “He fell to-day, and I may fall to-morrow.”

Sin to a believer is horrible, because it crucified the Saviour; he sees in every iniquity the nails and spear. How can a saved soul behold that cursed kill-Christ sin without abhorrence? Say, my heart, dost thou sensibly join in all this? It is an awful thing to insult God to his face. The good God deserves better treatment, the great God claims it, the just God will have it, or repay his adversary to his face.

An awakened heart trembles at the audacity of sin, and stands alarmed at the contemplation of its punishment. How monstrous a thing is rebellion! How direful a doom is prepared for the ungodly! My soul, never laugh at sin’s fooleries, lest thou come to smile at sin itself. It is thine enemy, and thy Lord’s enemy-view it with detestation, for so only canst thou evidence the possession of holiness, without which no man can see the Lord.”

Finding My Delight: Psalm 119:41-48

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Psalm 119:41-48

…for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.

In an impulsive moment, I recently commented on a somewhat controversial conversation thread on social media; something I rarely do. As is typical with my impulses, I later regretted it and went back to delete my comment. “Rash words are as the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing,” — words from the Proverbs that it would be well for me to live by always.

However, as is His habit, my great Teacher does not let my mistakes go to waste. Instead, He has had me ponder why I ever felt the need to have my say in the first place. It was not a case of “always being prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within” me. It was just a moment where I saw some of the thoughts that had been swirling in my head put partially into print by someone else. I felt a moment of identification and I responded.

While there may be nothing inherently wrong with the above scenario, I must be honest that there was something wrong with my motives. Ignore, for the moment, the fact that my remark was made spontaneously and with little thought and was not even representative of a fully fleshed-out idea. My error lay less in that (though it is a problem in its own right) and more in the fact that I was not finding my sense of acceptance and delight in God’s Word alone.

I know, I know, we are social beings, made to be social and operate in community. I have heard that, too. But what does it mean, really? How “social” are we actually being on the sorely misnamed social media platforms? To have a genuine conversation over a cup of tea with a live, flesh-and-blood person is a social activity. Commenting on a Facebook thread is nothing more than counterfeit community. But I digress…

The biggest problem lies in looking for confirmation from any source other than my heavenly Father. The fact is that, no matter where I find myself, whether before kings or before preschoolers, there is no human being who can fully fulfill the need for community that I have because not only are all human beings twisted by sin, the very need that I have is twisted by sin.

God  is gracious to give me a family and excellent friendships, yet He has never hesitated to point out to me the frailty of such relationships in a fallen world. In so many ways, the very community I find myself a part of, while wonderful and often vibrant, still points to the need for the unchanging Rock of my salvation.  Friends may move away. Circumstances often constrain the time we have for one another. Mistakes and, yes, rash words can cause injuries or rifts in relationships. People die.

I firmly believe that God allows a deep, soul-shaking lonesomeness to plague His own from time to time to remind us that He is our primary source of companionship and the only One who can truly fulfill our needs. Perhaps a sense of loneliness can also serve as a reminder that we are not yet at home. He will one day come to physically receive His bride to bliss. Until then, we have His word in which to take delight.

When I speak out of the turmoil of my heart, out of my own sometimes conflicting thoughts and emotions, I am frequently shamed by what spills out. However, if I find my delight in My Lord’s words, if I speak of His testimonies and lift up my empty hands to His word, then “I will not be put to shame.”

Once refocused, I do find my delight in His commandments, which I love. And when I do delight in His word, the burden of my need for connection or reassurance is shifted to the only pair of shoulders that can bear it — the mighty shoulders that have already borne the weight of humanity’s sins –those belonging to Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.

Teach Me: Psalm 119:33-40

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Psalm 119:33-40

Sometimes the days are all blue skies and sunshine, fluffy white clouds and a fine fragrance borne on the breeze.  Sometimes your home school looks exactly like one of those curriculum catalogs in which the respectful, eager student is cuddled next to Professor Mom on the couch, and smiles are more abundant than raindrops in spring. Sometimes your extended family exemplifies love and forgiveness, and all is well with the world.

And sometimes not.

Here we are, not even a half-dozen Hebrew letters into our acrostic and the world erupts into a zillion disordered bits of chaos and disconnectedness — or at least my little corner of it has. Suddenly, there is no hiding the reality of the sin nature. It is there, vivid and angry, breathing hot breath right into your face and daring you to deny its existence.

For me, last week was one of those that leaves you feeling helpless, useless, and empty of purpose. An already rotten home school year seemed to come to some sort of appalling climax. An incident involving my extended family escalated into a full-blown conflict, and my heart was broken many times over in so many ways I cannot even begin to list them even if I were so inclined.

Yet despite the horribleness of everything, I know my Rock is still there. Still, the week was a distressing reminder of how much I have yet to learn in following my King.  I find myself crying out every day, “Teach me, O Lord!”

For the matters here at home, I have done a lot of soul-searching to find out if I am at fault for the problems in my home school.  Perhaps I have been too strict or too lenient, too lax or overly managerial. Maybe I have required too much of the kids. Maybe I have not required enough.

Wherever the fault lies, the bald fact is that I have reached a point where I am drowning. All three kids have seemed to hit a spiritual, emotional, and academic slump at the same time, and there seems to be nothing I can do but persist in prayer and slog through the necessaries each day. I have no idea what else to do.

“Teach me, O Lord!”

Sometimes a person just needs a sobering reminder of how desperately she needs teaching. Sometimes, she needs to plead for understanding because everything she has ever tried before has fallen short. Sometimes, she just needs the strength of her God not to fall into the sin of hopelessness. Sometimes she needs her Guide to literally  her eyes from the worthlessness of despair and she must pray fervently for life in His ways.

And so, this week I pray:

Teach me, O Lord, how to remain humble and teachable. Teach me not to give up but to be diligent to the very end.

Give me understanding so I miss nothing in Your word and the wisdom to obey it.

Lead me on the paths You know to be safe and sure and teach me to delight in Your way even when the going is rough and other paths appear more friendly.

Incline my heart to Your testimonies and not to any form of selfishness, be it laziness, unforgiveness, greed, or anything else.

Turn my eyes from looking at the worthless ways of this world, from trinkets and distractions, from my “rights” and from self, for in self-focus is death. Give me life in You alone, my King.

Confirm Your promise to me and teach my heart appropriate reverence and respect. Do not allow me to forget who You are and the undeserved mercy You have given me.

Turn away the reproach that I not only dread but well deserve. Remind me that Your rules are good even when the days are long and dreary and full of pain.

I long for You, O Lord; to be freed from the body of this death and revived in the righteous life of my Lord Christ!

 

 

After Contrition: Psalm 119:25-32

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Psalm 119:25-32

How’s the memory work going so far? Don’t worry if you have fallen behind or simply cannot get the psalm to stick. This isn’t a contest, just a chance to let God’s Word percolate in our minds and hearts. Enjoy it!

Speaking of enjoyment, that is precisely what I have been praying for as I memorize this psalm: true enjoyment of God’s word. In treasuring the Word, I find my eyes are opened more and more as I go.

In my last post, I discussed one of the lies Satan uses to entrap people: using shame to drive them into hiding from God. However, that is not his only trick.  They are innumerable, truly, but before we move on I would like to touch on the lie that I believe is even more effective than shame today.  In a nutshell, it is the lie of complacency: that what God says is sin is not really sin.

In my own life and long before I was ashamed of my sin, I believed that sin was relegated to the Charles Mansons and the Jeffery Dahmers of the world — the gruesome and horrible. I did not recognize simple things like my own pride as sinful. In fact, I didn’t believe I had anything to worry about at all.

This is one of the Deceiver’s greatest lies; if he can catch a person before shame (which, for him, can be dangerously close to contrition), he can convince that person that what God calls “sin” is really just a choice, a lifestyle, a habit… anything but a crime against their Creator.

When I was young, I swallowed this lie readily.  I spent my twenties with this particular hook firmly embedded, and I literally had to allow God to tear it free when I finally surrendered to Him because I was well and truly captured.

I embraced a humanist worldview and did what I wanted, accepting no standard for right and wrong save the one I made up for myself. Like all such standards, mine  fluctuated as often as I needed it to in order to justify my actions. I often measured my actions against other people: “Well, I may not be a great person, but I’m not as bad as so-and-so.”

Just before God called me out of the darkness, I was set free from this lie only to be briefly imprisoned by the first trap we discussed: shame. Once I understood the truth of sin, I was so filled with remorse and self-loathing that I gave up on  trying to justify and simply took risks hoping that some accident would end what I lacked the courage to end of my own accord.

Then I met God, and my world was undone. I was overwhelmed by His forgiveness, and while the deceiver strove to keep me ensnared in shame, my gracious Lord set this captive free. Like David, I chose the way of faithfulness and set His rules before me. They are still my map for this journey, the necessary instruction I need so that I do not wander off the narrow path and become lost.

In this stanza, David asks that he may be given life through the Word of God after his grief has been expressed. For us, too, once sorrow has brought us to a place of confession, we can find life in the Word. As I learned in my late twenties, once contrition has yielded a properly humbled and teachable heart, the work of turning away from sin and turning toward God begins.

This will be a life-long work, a process known as “sanctification,” and there will be many turnings from sin as we misstep and stumble during our trek on the narrow path.  As Charles Spurgeon points out in his Morning and Evening Devotions, “Sincere repentance is continual. Believers repent until their dying day.”

As God had to show me,  much of repentance is the putting away of deceptions. In our psalm, I find it interesting that David attributes the work of putting aside false ways to God, but the choice to do so is his own. He knows he needs saving, and that only his Savior can complete this work.

Though we may try by human effort to resist temptation, it is the transforming power of God’s grace that will finally bring victory. He alone can really put our false ways to death.  Our work is in choosing.

But how?  David writes, “…I have set Your rules before me. I will cling to Your testimonies; let me not be put to shame!”

When the devil accuses and shames or when he seeks to lull us into a drifting spiritual slumber, may it be that we cling to the testimonies of God. May the evil one never ridicule us, for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, nor may he ever pacify us into a false sense of security.

May we always praise the One we can ask for help in putting false ways far from us. May it be that we, too, run in the way of His commandments with large and expansive hearts!

Sorrow for Sin: Psalm 119:25-32

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Psalm 119: 25-32

There is much in this stanza that I may not have time to cover, but one major theme I see is a beautiful description of grief over sin, confession, and repentance.  I love the progression here: the psalmist feeling weighed down and appealing to God to grant life by His word, the confession of the psalmist’s own wayward travels, and the pleas for instruction and understanding of the Law.

One of my favorite parts of this stanza is verse 26: “When I told of my ways, You answered me…”  It is an apt reminder that we can come to God just as we are, warts and all. We can tell Him who we really are because He already knows. Crazily, unbelievably, He loves us anyway. And He desires to pick us up, clean us off, and replace our sin-soiled clothes with a new garment of righteousness.

Though our sins separate us from God, we can rejoice because Christ has made a way for us by His sacrifice so that we may now approach the Throne of Grace to find mercy. And God is merciful. He does not want us attempting to hide our sin from Him– that is impossible. He wants us to tell Him of our ways… and then to forsake our ways for His.

It is a fine thing to experience true heartbreak over sin. Genuine remorse, though painful, is the first step in getting rid of the thing entirely.In the Christian race, as in any other, the adage applies: “No pain, no gain.” In this case, the pain is contrition, the gain is eternal life given through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sadly, in our current societal climate there is very little tolerance for such discomfort, but there is no way to true spiritual wholeness except through the agony of brokenness. It’s the crux of Christianity–that to truly live one must first die to self and to sin.

However, this process of pain is also a tricky business due to the devious work of the Accuser. That old snake will take our broken hearts and attempt to trap us in shame, striving with all his might not to let us move through to the purifying relief of repentance.

The very pain God intends to use to draw us to Himself, the devil attempts to use as a wedge. He wants the shame of sin to drive us into hiding, just as Adam and Eve tried to hide from the Lord in the cool of the evening on that fateful day when they chose to ignore His instruction.

Know, however, that it is not God’s plan for contrition to bring about mere shame. His desire is reconciliation; a desire so strong that He sent his only Son to bear all humanity’s shame and to suffer the full wrath of God in our place. What a wonder!

Indeed, so great is His compassion that God invites us to tell Him of all our ways, to confess freely the acts that cause our faces to burn with humiliation,  the seemingly small, “secret” sins that can even be more exacting on our conscience precisely because of their furtiveness, and everything in between.

If you struggle beneath the weight of true conviction and contrition, please do not fall for the lie that your sins are too heinous for God to handle.  Let’s not forget that He is the Eternal — there is literally nothing He has not seen or heard already. We cannot surprise or shock Him.

What’s more wonderful still, we can never out-sin Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross. We can never out-sin God’s ability to forgive.  So sinner bowed down beneath the burden of your guilt, tell Him of your ways. He will answer you.

Forgiver of our debts, I pray today for every person who reads these words and for everyone who is struggling beneath a burden of shame.  May they all leave their burdens at the Cross and walk unashamed through the strait gate on their way to the Celestial City, amen. 

Open My Eyes: Psalm 119:17-24

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Psalms 119:17-24
“Open my eyes….”

Though the enemy of our soul would have us believe otherwise, the Bible does contain much that is wonderful and splendid, bringing a sense of awe and reverence to the reader whose eyes have been opened by the Spirit of God. The father of lies wants to keep us in the dark, believing that God’s laws are restrictive and confining, that the Bible is a book of impossible rules.

God would have us know the truth: that it is a record of His tremendous and patient love for the only part of creation that He imprinted His own image upon and yet the only part that decisively rejected Him. He desires to communicate the extent of His love epitomized in Jesus, who came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it.

However, as Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

We are, without fail, afflicted by spiritual blindness. It is a symptom of the fallen world, the separation from God that Christ came to heal through His own body. While He walked here, He healed many blind men. He continues to heal spiritual blindness  to this day, restoring the sight of all who echo David’s words from the heart, “Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law.”

May we pray throughout our lives that He will open our eyes continually, that we may see more and more wonders within the Living Word!

In this stanza we also see the recognition of a wanderer, of one who is a stranger in a strange land far from home. Like the psalmist, if we belong to God, then our true home is with Him. For now, we have our work visas; we live abroad to do the work He has sent us to do. Some glorious day, work-worn and tired but filled with joy, we will go Home.

For now, however, we need a communication from Him to do His work properly. He has given us His commandments as a sort of “how-to” manual. It may be just such a desire to perform his task well that resulted in the psalmist’s plea, “Hide not Your commandments from me!”

Oh, that we will also seek out His guidelines for our work! May it be that we, too, will be consumed with longing for the rules of God! The truth of the matter is that our world is not so very different from the world David lived in when he penned these words. He asked that God would remove scorn and contempt, and we will also face scorn and contempt for our dedication to the ways of God.

The trick is not to try to avoid persecution or derision;  not to try to minimize our commitment to God in order to make it look less stark to those who mock and deride. The trick is to find our delight, not in the praise of men, but in the testimonies of our great and mighty God.

This God With Us, this Emmanuel, this vast and ancient Trinity, infinite and yet personal, holy and yet compassionate;  this amazing King of kings is fully capable of inspiring delight. As Charles Spurgeon writes, “Indeed, if I know Him at all, I must love Him.”

His law, His Word is waiting for you, beloved. He has made the good news of Christ Jesus accessible even to the young and the simple, yet His truths imprinted on the pages of the Bible are so profound that the depths of His nature, indeed of His goodness, may never be fully grasped this side of Heaven. To plumb the depths of the Word of God can be a source of intense satisfaction and joy.

Yet even knowing the truth is not good enough. This Word must also be our counselor. We must not only let it fill us with knowledge, but we must also allow it to correct and to guide. It is the map by which we can avoid traps and pitfalls while we sojourn behind enemy lines in this strange and wonderful place called Earth.

In the pages of the Bible, we can find truth, life, and peace. In surrendering wholly to its Author, we can find consummate joy; a joy that will suffice as a shield against the sting of ridicule. We can even find a delight that will bear us up under the anguish of true persecution if we should ever be called to face it.  

All can be borne because we know that our hope lies not in this rapidly changing world we so briefly inhabit but in the changeless, eternal Home we will one day reach at our journey’s end.

Psalm 119:9-16

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Psalm 119:9-16

If you are here from the memorization group, I hope it’s going well for you!  If not, allow me to explain. We are just running through Psalm 119 and attempting to hide it in our hearts.

We have already discussed (at length — I know, I know…) the idea of our walk with God; today I want to focus on the heart. In this stanza, the psalmist pours out his love for God through his love for God’s words.

Much of this stanza expands on the theme of passion for God’s Word and ways. The psalmist writes of a desire not to wander from God’s commands, of delighting in God’s word, of storing it in his heart and meditating on it. Underlying all these poignant yearnings is a deep reverence of and love for God. It is not merely a desire to increase knowledge that these verses speak of; it is a longing to stay near to the Master he loves.

It is my prayer that we, like the psalmist, will seek God with our whole hearts. I hope that the reason we memorize this psalm  and other passages of Scripture will not simply be to win Bible contests or to gain some funky brand of church-y acclaim, but for the sole purpose that this author dictates in the eleventh verse: I pray that we will store up this Word in our hearts that we, too, might not sin against God.

A fervent prayer of mine lately has been for a true revival of the Holy Spirit; a true hunger for the Bread of Life and a heartfelt desire among His people not to sin against Him. This will require genuine repentance, a repentance such as Charles Spurgeon describes in his Morning and Evening devotions:

Repentance makes us see the evil of sin, not merely as a theory, but experimentally — as a burnt child dreads fire.

This storing up of the Word as a guide to avoid sin is a beautiful motive for memorization. Let’s tuck this one in our metaphorical back pockets to pull out later if the whole thing, whether memory work or our Christian walk itself, starts to seem cumbersome.

Let’s pray diligently that God will put in our own hearts a delight for His word and a desire to meditate on it. Let’s ask Him not to let us wander from His commands and off the narrow path, and let’s seek Him with our whole hearts.

May it be that the Holy Spirit so works in our lives through the Scripture we hide in our hearts that we no longer take pleasure in sin but only in pleasing the One who gave His all for us.  Mighty One who is Love, increase our love for You!

Psalm 119:9

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Psalm 119:9-16

Have you noticed the references to a journey in the psalm so far? The first and third verses talk of walking in His laws and ways, and now with verses 9  and 10, we pick up the idea of a path and of wandering from it.  Perhaps it’s my love for hiking, but the idea of sanctification as a walk with the Lord resonates with me. However, before we further discuss the walking analogy, let me insert another nerdy interlude:

Many translations render verse 9 very similarly to the ESV: “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to Your word.”  

The NIV, however,  paraphrases the passage: “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.”

Here again, I love to peek at other translations and to use my Bible study tools. A program I rely heavily on is e-sword which includes a KJV translation with Strong’s numbers linked to Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionary, making it extremely simple to do minor word studies.  As a disclaimer, I know little to nothing about Hebrew grammar, so I tend to stick to nouns in my word studies for now. Using these resources,  I found that the word translated “way” is the Hebrew ‘ôrach. According to Strong’s, it can be stated as, among other things, “a well-trodden road.” I love that.

Imagine with me for a moment: We are each walking our own well-trodden roads, for such you could call our habits and lifestyles. How can we keep these pure and swept clean of debris and obstacles that may cause us to stumble or even veer off course? How, in fact,  can we keep ourselves on the narrow path that leads to life?  By guarding our ways according to God’s word.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of the verse in these terms, it conjures a wild image of trekking along a harrowing, narrow trail leading to a destination where I desperately desire to arrive. In my mind’s eye, I find myself stopping at a point where the track begins to wind up a precipitous incline.

Heart pounding, I see myself nervously examine the path ahead and realize with a pleasant shock that, of all things, there are guard rails along the way! They are low enough I could choose to step over but high enough that I would know I was making a conscious choice to do so.  No matter; my desire is not to stray. I am comforted to know that while the trail may be difficult, it is not without protection for the careful hiker.

Perhaps I ran with the analogy a bit,  yet we could think of God’s word as guard rails for our hearts as we make our spiritual journey. His Word, studied with diligence and humility, is the sure guide to the narrow path we tread when we follow Him. Within its pages, we will find not only comfort and solace but words and concepts that will bring the full weight of conviction bearing down on us.

Conviction may be painful, but it is a “good pain” if we will let God’s Spirit have His way in it.  As 2 Corinthians 7:10 states, “Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” The burn of shame is a blessing when it produces true repentance. Our enemy would have us either ignore conviction completely or else let the reproach gnaw painfully, endlessly in our hearts until they have become utterly numb.

If, on our journeys, we feel the sting of reproach, let’s school ourselves not to push it out of our minds nor make excuses for sins. Let’s beware of adopting the more convenient and stylish cultural definitions of morality even though it is our nature to prefer this, the wide-open path that produces fewer bruises to our egos.

I love how C. S. Lewis describes the thing in his book, The Screwtape Letters, a fictional collection of “letters” from a senior demon mentoring his nephew in the ways of tempting and trapping souls:

It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing.  Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts…”

Yet, my friends, we are not taking that broad and most dangerous of roads, for we know that though it seems an easy way and a safe, its destination is far from desirable.

The winding, narrow path, though certainly less populated and possibly overgrown from lack of use, is full of markers and signs to keep us from accidentally straying. The Bible serves as our guidebook along the way–our guard rail if you will–full not only of the grace of God but also of humbling reminders of why we need His grace.

So as we memorize let’s diligently and without pretense apply this word to our ways, not making excuses nor looking into it only for comfort and never for guidance. We will then find that our path is clearly and safely marked out, just waiting to be trodden on with confidence and joy.

And oh my, I just realized — I didn’t even make it past the first verse…

Psalm 119:1-8

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Psalms 119:1-8

Though I am memorizing in the ESV, I love the first verse of this psalm in the Holman Christian Standard version: “How happy are those whose way is blameless,  who live according to the Lord’s instruction!”  

The first word of our psalm is the Hebrew word ‘esher. The word can be translated “happiness” or “blessedness,” and it is often used as an interjection akin to saying, “How happy!”  Indeed, how happy are those who tarry with the Lord!

Right at the very beginning, the psalm flies in the face of everything I believed before I came to know the Most High. Before I fell in love with the Author of my faith, I did not see His law and happiness as co-existent.  Blinded by sin, I believed the law to be stifling and ridiculously full of old-fashioned values and outdated mores. I did not want such restrictions on my activity. I was progressive. I was enlightened.  I was intelligent.  Or so I believed.

If I had been honest (which I certainly was not back then), I would have had to admit that my main beef with God’s law was simply that I did not wish to give up my way of doing things.  Although I knew deep in my heart that many choices I made were dead wrong and even unhealthy and unsustainable, I stubbornly clung to them, fearful that giving up my “independence” to a bunch of laws would rob the joy from life.

Quite the opposite: how happy is the man (or in my case, woman)!

You see, in those days of running from God, I never did find the happiness I sought. Oh, I had good moments and good days, but when I was all alone in the night, I also had fear. I had regret. I was full of bitterness and self-loathing.

In those days I was also haunted by a sickening knowledge of my own wrongness. These were the genuine bursts of real thought that surfaced during rare times I did not self-medicate with alcohol or distract myself with licentious living.

Oh, if I could only go back and tell that old self how much happier she would be if only she would not continue to flee from God’s laws but embrace them and find the peace she craves! I long to tell her that “old-fashioned” is not always akin to obsolete but is sometimes ancient and marvelous, full of beauty as the skies are full of stars.

Let’s look back and visit the old me for a moment; this girl who had trusted in the new ideals over the tried-and-true.

There she lays, sobbing on the floor of her apartment. She has been in a desperate, fruitless search for love, for something to quiet her turbulent heart, yet she ignores the only One whose love will complete her. She even mocks Him whose love will loose the snaky bonds she now calls “freedom” and make her more truly herself than she is now in this sad, half-life of bars and shallow relationships.

I pity her.

But she will learn. Before many  years pass, she will read this very psalm and make the fifth verse her own fervent prayer. Seeking God with her whole heart, she will find a love even greater than  she ever dreamed possible.  She will find happiness in walking in His laws, and despite what she now thinks, will find nothing but distress and heartache outside the borders of His will.

It will take a trip or two across those borders before she realizes the absolute futility of trying to reconcile the old life with the new. The more she walks with the Light of the world, the more she sees the chipped paint and tarnish on those things that once seemed to glitter like diamond, the very things that once enticed her away from her King.

As her reverence for her King grows,  she will choose to walk more and more closely with Him, avoiding  even drifting towards the boundaries of His will lest she stray across the edge.  The lure of her former life will be utterly dead and its corpse sidestepped with disgust.

Though difficult times will come and she will be troubled, the Lover of her soul will always provide grace to help in time of need.  How happy will she be!

 

Psalm 119: Introduction

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Welcome! Whether you are here by invitation from the Facebook group, Memorizing Psalm 119, or have been following this blog, I would be honored if you will join with me in attempting to memorize and/or study the longest psalm in the Bible.  If you merely stumbled across this blog by accident, welcome just the same! The same invitation applies.

Whatever brings you here, my intention for the next several months is to both memorize and study Psalm 119. I would love nothing more than to do this in the fellowship of my Christian sisters and brothers.  My hope is to post devotional thoughts or to share what God is teaching me, personally, as I ruminate on this Word.

I am particularly excited about this project.  For a few years now, I have met at different times with friends, and we have prayed for God’s people to truly hunger for His word.  Even before these prayer meetings, I have had a personal wish to memorize this Psalm. Recently, God prompted me to combine the two into one project, and so here we are.

This theme of Psalm 119 is quite simply a passionate love of God and of His Word.  The psalmist uses a synonym for God’s Word in almost every line of the poem, and his powerful desire to walk closely with His God is evident throughout. Considering the focus of my prayer groups, it seems fitting, then, to study or memorize this psalm of passion for the Word of God and it’s Author.

Before we move on, let’s take a quick peek at the psalm itself. Besides being the longest psalm, it is also the longest chapter in the Bible. The author is not explicitly mentioned in this psalm, but many attribute it to David. Personally, I tend to favor Charles Spurgeon’s approach to assigning authorship:

It is Davidic in tone and expression, and it tallies with David’s experience in many interesting points. . .  After long reading an author one gets to know his style, and a measure of discernment is acquired by which his composition is detected even if his name be concealed. . .

This work was originally penned in Hebrew, of course, and it is an acrostic poem. It is broken into 22 stanzas of 8 verses each; one stanza for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  All 8 verses within each stanza begin with the corresponding letter, so the first word of each line of the first stanza begins with “aleph,” the first word of each line in the second stanza begins with “bet,” and so on.  You could even say it is the “aleph-bet” of following the Lord!

A little nerdy aside: I actually had to do a little legwork to figure this out. I have always heard that Psalm 119 was an acrostic, but when I would use the Strong’s numbers to look up each first word, I was befuddled to find that they did not start with the same-shaped letter.

Only recently did I realize my error: I was looking at the wrong end of the Hebrew word! Hebrew is written from right to left; quite the opposite from English. So when I was looking at what I thought was the beginning of the word in Hebrew, I was actually looking at the final letter!

If you are interested in additional fun facts about Psalm 119, check out this resource at basicsofthebible.org for more nerdy bliss.

OK, now that you have a basic overview of the Psalm, let’s dive in, meditate on this wonderful Word, and store it up in our hearts…

Living Word, please be with each of us as we begin this venture to meditate on a section of Your Word. As we tuck these tidbits into our hearts,  let us taste and see that You are good.  Protect each brother or sister who embarks on this journey from the evil one’s attempts to counterfeit or destroy Your work.

We ask that You will provide the time, the mental ability, and the steadfastness that we will need to get into Your wonderful word, both to study and for those of us who will try to commit it to heart. As we seek to learn this Psalm, I pray that we will also meditate on the psalmist’s words. May it be that some of his ardor will trickle into our own hearts as well. Protect us from our own pride and may it all be done for the glory of Your Son in whose name we pray,  amen.