Reading… and Thinking

How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.

— Psalm 119:9-10 (NIV)

The 119th psalm is the longest chapter in the Bible—176 verses. You may be aware that it is an acrostic, divided into 22 blocks of 8 verses each, representing the 22 characters of the Hebrew alphabet. Every line within a block begins with the same character. So each line in the first eight verses begins with aleph, each line in the second group begins with beth, the third with gimel, and so on through the whole alphabet.

The entire poem is an exploration of all the ways that devotion to the word of God can be expressed. Each verse is a two-line couplet that says something about God’s word. In music it would be called “theme and variations”. There are a number of terms used to refer to the word of God, and they express the great variety in which He reveals Himself. The terms include: law, testimonies, ways, precepts, statutes, commandments, judgments, ordinances, word.

All of which is rather coldly analytical, and that’s definitely not the psalmist’s intent! His point is to express, in every way he can think of, his sense of awe for the word of God. He describes its power, he longs for those who revile the word to be brought to justice, he asks that the ignorant may come to understand it, he prays for increasing understanding of it, he longs for it to fill him so completely that nothing else remains.

The verses quoted above capture some of that devotion. I chose them because they particularly urge young people to heed the word. Reverence for God’s word is not only an activity for elders—it’s for the young as well!

The writer prays in verse 18, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from your law.” We tend to think of the Law of Moses as having passed away, but the Lord Jesus certainly had great reverence for it. For those with their eyes open, it was the schoolmaster to bring Israel to Christ (as Paul says in Galatians 3:24). No part of the word of God should be considered as not worth spending time on! If there are parts of God’s word that seem closed to you, then this prayer to “open my eyes” may be one that you can enter into.

The Lord says through Isaiah, “But this is the man to whom I will look, he that is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2) The spirit of reverence for the word that’s evident in Psalm 119 is clearly what the Lord is looking for. The psalm can seem kind of repetitive as you read it. It will help if you take it as a catalog of all the good that God’s word can do. It is powerful in the life of the individual. It conveys the promise of a wonderful life to come. It reveals the dead end of those who ignore God’s word. And, it shows that God’s word will eventually rule all the world!

With 176 different expressions, I will bet that there is one of those that says exactly what you are feeling. Find the prayer that expresses your mind, and make it your own!