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Today we rejoin our ongoing series entitled “Psalms Greatest Hits” and consider the 5th stanza in Psalm 119. As you know, each eight verse stanza is headed by a letter of the Hebrew Alphabet, and each verse of each stanza speaks about God’s word, law, commands, precepts, ways, or testimonies. It is the longest chapter in the Bible and holds a central position in the midsts of all the combined writings.

“He” is pronounced as a voiceless sound, or what we might call the H sound, or the sound of exhalation. In Judaism, He is the abbreviation “Hashem” (the name), referring to the name of God (YHWH) which is not pronounced. It’s the way of saying God without saying it, by placing God in and on our own breath or the name of God as our very breath. Many have pointed out that our first action of life is our inhalation (YH) and our last is our exhalation (WH), thus speaking the name of God as our first and last act of all humanity.

This section of chapter 119 is one that I come to over and over again. It has a cosmic ring throughout my entire being, echoing from my earliest childhood memories, and bouncing off countless events of my life over the years. It might make me weird by the world’s standards, but these prayers for understanding and to be taught and led by the Lord, have existed before I can even remember. Now after five decades, I can say that God has answered me, and graced me with spiritual sight, understanding, and has led me on a profoundly blessed path…though it hasn’t always been easy.

³³ Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes;
    and I will keep it to the end.
³⁴ Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
    and observe it with my whole heart.

The disposition of this Psalmist, whom scholars believe is David, is that of a humble student who is intimately connected to God, who communicates at the deepest levels of the soul and human experience. God’s divine law of love, and the teachings that stem from it, speak to our lives so unconventionally, that once we see the counter-intuitive nature of it in action, along with how transformative it is, we keep going back again and again. To truly gain understanding is to see things how God sees things, and to love and apply the law of love and to live a life in fidelity to it. It’s something we will do for the rest of our existence because it’s that good.

That last part is hard for me if I’m honest. I often read this chapter and find myself in a place of not feeling as if I can read along as if every line is true for me. And that’s when it comes to me, that the Psalmist, especially if its David, lives in this tension too, but still possesses the heart that will yield to the ways of God, when he finds himself outside of them. Thus he continues:

³⁵ Lead me in the path of your commandments,
    for I delight in it.
³⁶ Incline my heart to your testimonies,
    and not to selfish gain!
³⁷ Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things;
    and give me life in your ways.

How many of us can sincerely pray this? How often do we only trust our limited understanding? How many of us can say we delight in God’s commandments? In a world where so many of us live in abundance compared to the rest of the world, how many can say we’d rather have the Word of God than material gain? And speaking of our material possessions, how much of our resources go solely to ourselves? How much of our day is spent death scrolling “worthless things” compared to how much time we spend in God’s Word seeking the true source and meaning of life? Now imagine life without these words…without their counter-balance…we would have no sense as to how far we are drifting. It would be like our world driving with no traffic laws.

³⁸ Confirm to your servant your promise,
    that you may be feared.

When our spirit convenes with God’s Spirit, a depth dimension of life is experienced as we realize we are communicating with the Creator of the Universe. This reality is not some figment of our imagination, nor is it delusional self talk. Out of these exchanges, God makes covenants with us in love. As we experience these graced awarenesses, and are overcome by this experience of love, mercy, and kindness, we respond in similar covenants and promises. As God delivers on his promises, these depth dimensions spill out into our tangible, corporeal existence, and we learn that behind all that exists, is the spiritual plane of reality. The Word becomes flesh. The non-physical gives way to all that is seen, teaching us that true seeing is to apprehend the antecedent to all that is manifested as the material world. Understanding that workflow, creates an awe or fear because we can no longer “unsee” what is behind both the broken and the blessed worlds.

³⁹ Turn away the reproach that I dread,
    for your rules are good.
⁴⁰ Behold, I long for your precepts;
    in your righteousness give me life!

Life has a way of unfolding to us in ways that we don’t expect. In our tiny faith, we judge this unfolding as either good or bad, favor or reproach. The only antidote to this is to know the formula behind and beyond everything. These are not just the rules for our conduct, but the ways, precepts, rules, and design of all of life. These have been given to us by our Maker in love to enlarge our faith and trust God in the beauty and timing of the unfolding of our lives. These principles are the architecture of true life, not merely existence. God is righteous and good to generously give us the unexpected answers long before we ever ask the questions. He knows how we are made. He knows the reproach we feel from our own disobedience. In our shame, we must lean into God, not away. When we seek life from within this revelation, we seek the highest experience of life that is possible for anyone. God’s lovingkindness is better than life.

We are so fortunate to have these words of life, given to us by God through the lives of men and women who have come before us and have experienced the same graced awareness. May I ask each of you to sit still with these words and contemplate the priorities we have in life. If we find anything, and I mean anything, that captures more of our attention, more of our affection, more of our time than the love of God and his word, may we immediately stop, and be willing to completely open our hand of it, in exchange for God’s words of life. And may we stare soberly at any reluctance on our part to do so, and hold that stubbornness up to God as an offering, as a request, to replace what sits on the throne of our life, with God Himself.

Then we can join the Psalmist as his words become the prayers of our heart too.