The Grand Canyon is impressive and huge: 277 miles lengthy, as much as 18 miles extensive, and over a mile deep. Overlaying about 1,900 sq. miles, the Canyon is more or less the scale of the state of Delaware. Whilst hundreds of thousands seek advice from this nationwide park every 12 months, the overwhelming majority see the Canyon handiest from the rim and not undertaking onto the paths to discover its wonders.
Recall to mind Psalm 119, the longest bankruptcy within the Bible, as “the Grand Psalm.” At 176 verses, this unmarried psalm is longer than Ephesians and 28 different books of the Bible! It contains many acquainted strains, akin to, “Your phrase is a lamp to my toes and a mild to my trail” (verse 105). However finding out the entire psalm is a little bit like surroundings off on a hike to the ground of the Grand Canyon.
After a couple of hours at the path within the blistering wilderness solar, weary hikers may conclude that they’ve noticed sufficient of the limestone, sandstone, and shale rock formations and head for the air-conditioned reward store. You could have equivalent ideas about Psalm 119, because the verses appear to run in combination as they discuss over and over again concerning the Scriptures as God’s legislation, testimonies, precepts, statutes, commandments, regulations, phrase, and promise.
To get our bearings, be aware that Psalm 119 is an intricate acrostic poem with 22 stanzas comparable to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet: aleph, beth, and so on. Simply because the mighty Colorado River runs in the course of the Grand Canyon with its sheer rock partitions, so the poetic type of the Grand Psalm supplies the partitions wherein a river of hobby and reward flows. The impressed poet was once so captivated via the loveliness of God’s phrase, so assured in its truthfulness, that he penned the Bible’s longest, most complex poem celebrating the E book God gave us for our excellent.
Let’s discover 3 topics or “trails” in and thru this Grand Psalm — devotion, dependence, and pleasure — to resume and deepen our love for the E book of God.
Devotion
The primary path in the course of the Grand Psalm is devotion. Devotion is like checking the map, opting for your course, and surroundings off with keen expectation. We should orient our minds, hearts, and lives to God and his phrase. The psalm opens with a double blessing that captures this emphasis on heartfelt devotion:
Blessed are the ones whose means is innocent, who stroll within the legislation of the Lord!Blessed are those that stay his testimonies, who search him with their complete middle,who additionally do no improper, however stroll in his techniques! (verses 1–3)
“Blessed” way in reality satisfied and appreciated via God (as in Psalm 1:1). Our society defines the great lifestyles via accumulation of possessions, via private achievements and autonomy. However the excellent lifestyles is in fact present in in search of the real God, conserving his techniques, and being satisfied in him.
After which, after handiest 3 verses of talking about God, the worshiper speaks without delay to God. We most often bring to mind Psalm 119 as a lofty poem about God’s phrase. However additionally it is essentially the most sustained “I-to-you” prayer within the Bible. The Grand Psalm displays private, passionate, and truthful communion with the dwelling God — in different phrases, devotion to the dwelling God.
“Devotion pleads, ‘Train me!’ Dependence cries, ‘Assist me!’ Pleasure says, “Thrill me!’”
Over and over, this psalm ponders valuable truths about God’s personality and techniques. “You’re excellent and do excellent” (verse 68). In verses 4–8, the poet rehearses fact (“You informed me to scrupulously stay your phrase”), makes a request (“I need to stay it”), then expresses his unravel (“I intend to stay it!”). Those and different verses of the Grand Psalm summon us to a lifetime of deep devotion, a lifestyles marked via self assurance in God’s phrase and wholehearted dedication to God’s techniques.
This primary path in the course of the Grand Psalm orients us to what’s true, proper, and excellent and motivates us to accept as true with God and search him. The phrase is a lamp to our toes and a mild to our trail (verse 105), so the worshiper prays, “Train me, O Lord” (verse 33). We want mild from God’s phrase as a result of we steadily face darkness — which ends up in our 2nd theme.
Dependence
Returning to the mountaineering analogy, dependence is if you end up hours into your hike and also you’re weary and hurting and questioning in case you’re going the precise means. This 2nd path in the course of the Grand Psalm includes trusting God thru trials. We transfer from the prayer of devotion, “Train me,” to the determined plea, “Assist me!”
The psalmist identifies himself as “a sojourner in the world” (verse 19), and he incessantly expresses his neediness, confusion, and bother. This believer is significantly stricken. He weeps, lies conscious at night time, cries for lend a hand, and longs for salvation. Recall to mind King David at the run from his sweetheart’s father Saul or his son Absalom. Recall to mind David’s larger Son, Jesus, a person of sorrows, familiar with grief. He was once mocked, betrayed, deserted, accused, tortured, and killed.
The psalmist hits all-time low in verses 81–87. This embattled believer appears like “wineskin within the smoke” — spent, burned out, gotten smaller up, forged apart. Recall to mind Task sitting within the ashes, scraping his sores, or Jeremiah on the backside of a muddy cistern. The poet cries out, “How lengthy? Assist!” He can’t see some way out. He’s virtually finished — but he clings to God’s promise. That’s how mild pushes in the course of the darkness, turning desperation into assured pleasure: “Endlessly, O Lord, your phrase is firmly fastened within the heavens” (verse 89).
Even after this hopeful flip to self assurance, the path of dependence in affliction winds in the course of the Grand Psalm till its unexpected conclusion: “I’ve long past off track like a misplaced sheep; search your servant, for I don’t omit your commandments” (verse 176). In different places, the believer insists that he does no longer stray from God’s precepts (verse 110). But right here, as he addresses the holy God, he’s conscious of his personal sin. “Susceptible to wander, Lord, I think it!” That is the prayer of person who is deficient in spirit and who has tasted the grace of God. The psalmist seeks God along with his complete middle (verses 2, 10), however he additionally wishes the divine Shepherd to hunt him.
Pleasure
Our remaining path in the course of the Grand Psalm is satisfaction. Ten instances, the poet expresses his gladness in God’s phrase, as in verse 14: “In the way in which of your testimonies I satisfaction up to in all riches.” The emphasis on satisfaction remembers the satisfied guy of Psalm 1, whose “satisfaction is within the legislation of the Lord” (Psalm 1:2). Our psalmist sings on account of the best price of God’s phrase, which is extra valuable than gold or silver (verses 72, 127). Certainly, the Scriptures are a savory ceremonial dinner for the soul: “How candy are your phrases to my style, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (verse 103).
Remember the fact that those euphoric expressions spring from the pen of the similar poet who has continued days of misery, sleepless nights, and numerous afflictions. He idea his lifestyles was once over. He felt used up and wiped out. God met him within the darkness, sustained him within the valley, and taken him to a spot of abundance. So, he rests and revels in God’s trustworthy phrase. He treasures his God in and thru trials, expressing the biblical fact that believers are steadily “sorrowful, but at all times rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).
Devotion says, “Train me!” Dependence cries, “Assist me!” Pleasure says, “Thrill me!” This 3rd path thru Psalm 119 finds the purpose of our devotion to God and dependence on his guarantees. Why does a hiker activate with keen expectation and stay going even if he’s drained, scorching, and hurting everywhere? As a result of he is aware of that the path results in a impressive waterfall the place he can gaze upon glory and plunge into refreshing swimming pools. As Augustine famously prayed, “You may have made us for Your self, and our hearts are stressed till they leisure in You” (Confessions, 1.1.1).
The Grand Psalm holds out for us a contemporary imaginative and prescient of the God who has graciously given us his very good phrase, the God who sustains and satisfies his weary saints. So take and browse the E book of God with devotion, dependence, and pleasure.
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