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In our ongoing series entitled Psalms Greatest Hits, we are going to visit the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm. This is my favorite Psalm and one of my most favorite chapters of the Bible which I return to over and over again. Over the years I’ve discovered, as I hope you will too, that I do not so much read this Psalm as it reads me. This chapter has been called the Mount Everest of Psalms and a tribute to the Word of the Lord because that is the central theme woven into almost all the verses. Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm with one hundred seventy-six verses divided into twenty-two sections, each section beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and each section comprising eight verses. This psalm or most of it is attributed to David, but it’s technically anonymous. I think that adds another layer of beauty to this as it remains open ended and even Christological.

This is how the chapter opens:

Aleph

 Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
    who walk in the law of the Lord!
² Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
    who seek him with their whole heart,
³ who also do no wrong,
    but walk in his ways!
⁴ You have commanded your precepts
    to be kept diligently.
⁵ Oh that my ways may be steadfast
    in keeping your statutes!
⁶ Then I shall not be put to shame,
    having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.
⁷ I will praise you with an upright heart,
    when I learn your righteous rules.
⁸ I will keep your statutes;
    do not utterly forsake me!

Laying this verse next to one’s own life can quickly cause dissonance to bubble to the surface. It feels like I’m not good enough to say these words with any integrity. Lay it next to the unbelieving modern world and it becomes such a foreign object emitting a reaction of incredulous astonishment. Obedience to established moral rules, and living in fidelity to a standard of right living is simply not taught anymore, except for the minority of people. The masses have turned their back on world religions primarily because of its requirements to live holy, righteous, and moral lives. We all can see the world is in a moral freewill. And within the sphere of spiritual formation, the religious mind is taught more about our inability to live morally righteous, and the focus is upon substitutionary atonement, or the grace and forgiveness of God which covers our gaps in morality, than there is teaching about living morally pure according to God’s law.

Our relationship to the commands of God tell us something.

The Psalmist makes statements and prays things our modern experience doesn’t comprehend. Each of the eight verses of this opening stanza reference the word of God or his law, statutes, rules, commandments, precepts, ways or testimony. In fact, only five verses out of the entire 176 do not mention the Word of the Lord.

This Psalm makes it impossible for a person of faith, who sincerely seeks to know God, to exempt themselves from the relational requirement of obedience to what God has said. A true believer cannot say “No…Lord”, and the heart of the person transformed by a relationship with God is such that he or she begins to love, long for, and is desperate for more of God’s direction for moral living. The only spirituality that claims intimacy with God while rejecting God’s commands is a delusional spirituality.

Any reading of these verses and immediately the honest person will stumble upon a verse with which they cannot attest…and that is the point at which we must stop reading…sit in silence…and lean into this Psalm. We would be a fool or a child without understanding if we read these words, and then reject the premise upon which they are built because we feel a sense of condemnation. This Psalm exposes, over and over again, the areas we have fallen short and then invites us to follow the leadership of the Psalmist and return to the Lord and his commandments for life. For example, the purpose of the regulatory speed limit signs along our highway are not for ignoring, they are reminders to check our speed and adapt our driving accordingly. This Psalm is an exaltation of how God loves us, protects us, and guides us through His divine regulation. God’s law is not a killjoy, it is the way to experience ultimate joy here on earth. When He says “No!”, it means; “No, that will hurt you!”

The motivation for keeping God’s rules is not fear that God will punish us. It is not fear of being ostracized by a community, nor any punitive experience, for those are all low level, toddler sized power plays. This psalm reveals that the true motivation for obeying God’s statues is our love of God and therefore our love of anything God asks of us. Putting aside our impulses, starving our appetites, and delaying gratification are celebrated once the wisdom of such things is experienced in life. Only the impulsive, immature soul is blind to the long game…but such is the state of our world.

May I invite you to find about thirty minutes where you can be quiet and not be disturbed. Sit in silence for five minutes and then ask God to allow his Spirit to do His work on your soul as you open up this chapter. Then carefully read through the 176 verses of chapter 119. Notice the redirection within every verse and strive to be re-directed. Pay attention to every snag, where you realized you are far from this standard. Then pause and pray. Ask God to help you move into conformity to this example of obedience. Ask, if possible, that God would give you a love like this for his word and recognize honestly every place where you have no affection for God’s rules. Allow your heart to be humbled and transformed if possible.

This Psalm is kind of like the movie “Black Snake Moan” where Christina Ricci’s character becomes tethered to a chain to keep her from doing harm to herself. At first she resists and is angered by the fetter, but later comes to embrace it as she realized it helped deliver her from her living hell. It reminds me of the words to that wonderful hymn, “Fount of every Blessing.”:

Oh to grace how great a debtor, Daily I’m constrained to be
Let Thy goodness like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love

God’s word is much the same to each of us. If we are self-aware and we resent the chain of goodness, it is because we haven’t journeyed long enough, we have not discovered who we are on the other side of temptation. When you find yourself wandering, desiring to leave the garden, see if you can sit still a little longer. See if heeding the speed limit of life doesn’t create a new you. There is no greater chapter in all of scripture that works like a GPS coordinate to pinpoint our juxtaposition between how we are living and what our Maker expects of us. What feels like shaming, is the safe harbor of our soul.

May all our hearts conform and submit to the Word of the Lord.