Tag Archives: “Thy Word”

Nun

¹⁰⁵ Your word is a lamp to guide my feet
    and a light for my path.
¹⁰⁶ I’ve promised it once, and I’ll promise it again:
    I will obey your righteous regulations.
¹⁰⁷ I have suffered much, O Lord;
    restore my life again as you promised.
¹⁰⁸ Lord, accept my offering of praise,
    and teach me your regulations.
¹⁰⁹ My life constantly hangs in the balance,
    but I will not stop obeying your instructions.
¹¹⁰ The wicked have set their traps for me,
    but I will not turn from your commandments.
¹¹¹ Your laws are my treasure;
    they are my heart’s delight.
¹¹² I am determined to keep your decrees
    to the very end.

Psalm 119:97-105

Dear God, as I read this “Nun” section of Psalm 119 this morning, I thought about the Letter in Revelation 2 to the church at Ephesus. How they were doing great things, but they had lost their first love of loving you with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and then loving their neighbors. What came to me is that I do not believe the psalmist has this problem. He is definitely clinging to you. He wants to do the right things, but it is out of his love for you that he wants to do them. Honestly, I don’t know how much he is loving his neighbors, but he is certainly devoted to you.

If I were to receive a supernatural letter from you in the mail, what would it say? Would I even have the courage to open it? It’s awfully convenient when these conversations are a one-way street, and I can just imagine your encouraging words to me. But where are your frustration points with me?

With all that said, let’s get into today’s verses.

• ¹⁰⁵ Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path. – Of course, this is a popular verse. When I read it I can hear Amy Grant singing it. It was written on one of the side of Baylor University’s old administration building, Pat Neff Hall. Of course, we have our current interpretation of your “word.” We think of our modern Bible as your word. For the psalmist, however, I think he was mainly talking about the instructions in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. The laws. Your laws are a lamp unto his feel and a light for his path. As I come against difficult, complex, or confusing situations today at work, help me to use your word, both your law and the other teachings I get through the entire Bible, as well as your still small voice, Holy Spirit, to guide me.
• ¹⁰⁶ I’ve promised it once, and I’ll promise it again: I will obey your righteous regulations. – Yes, he has promised it many times. Even in just the previous 105 verses. What must this man have been like to be around? He seems so desperate to throw himself into you. I wonder what kind of personal pain he carried into writing this psalm. What was his state of mind when he chose each word? As I imagine visiting with him, my tendency it to try to get him to relax just a little.
• ¹⁰⁷ I have suffered much, O Lord; restore my life again as you promised. – I don’t know if this is the right prayer or not. Maybe you promised the psalmist that you would restore a life he lost, but I feel no such expectation of my life. Studying Job and looking at the lives of Paul, Peter, and the other apostles, I cannot make this same statement to you. I simply pray for the healing of the people I love, regardless of what it might cost me.
• ¹⁰⁸ Lord, accept my offering of praise, and teach me your regulations. – Yes, this. My offering of praise is feeble, I know, but I do offer it. My wife and I just did our daily prayer together, and I tried to focus it around worship and praise. Gratitude for what you are doing that I can see and what you are doing that I cannot see.
• ¹⁰⁹ My life constantly hangs in the balance, but I will not stop obeying your instructions. – Reading about some of the persecution the Christians in some of those Revelation churches experienced was sobering. The church in Smyrna comes to mind. You had no rebukes for them, and yet you told them they were about to suffer, even to death. But they would not succumb to the second death. I don’t suffer to anything near that extent. In fact, outside of a few relationships that are strained, I don’t get chastised for my faith in you at all. So I don’t know what it is like to have my life hang in the balance, but I appreciate this psalmist feeling like his did and yet he would follow your instructions anyway.
• ¹¹⁰ The wicked have set their traps for me, but I will not turn from your commandments. – I suppose there are traps we gladly walk into. Jesus did that. He would gladly walk into a trap the Pharisees or Sadducees set for him, but then he would cleverly turn it on them and they would find themselves in their own traps. I pray that if I find myself in any kind of difficult situation that you would give me the shrewdness and wisdom to call on you and know what to say.
• ¹¹¹ Your laws are my treasure; they are my heart’s delight. – Your presence in my life is the source of life for me. My heart would be a dark place without you.
• ¹¹² I am determined to keep your decrees to the very end. – Yes, I am determined to keep your decrees to the very end.

I pray all of this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen