21 Days of Prayer in Psalm 119 (Day #4)

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                "My Soul"

Psalm 119:25, 28

“My soul clings to the dust;
         give me life according to your word!” (v.25)

“My soul melts away for sorrow;
    strengthen me according to your word!” (v.28)

As I read this passage today, it is apparent that the psalmist is being honest with the Lord about the stress of the crisis he is facing. The idea that his “soul clings to the dust” describes a death-like experience. He is basically saying, “This is killing me!” but immediately transfers his fatalistic assessment into a prayer of faith, asking that the Lord impart to him “life according to your word” without which he could not continue.

Verse 28 continues the same sentiment regarding his soul, this time using the emotion of sorrow instead of the physical description of being laid prostrate in the dust. The result in both cases is the same—without the life/strength supplied by the word of the Lord—he is dying inside and out. But the hope we find in this passage is that the writer knew that God’s word does strengthen and give life!

I must ask myself, “Do I treat the Word of God as though it were a life-and-death issue for me?” If I am honest, I am faced with the truth that sometimes, I do depend fully on God’s Word, and sometimes I don’t—yet it is just that.

From as early as the Lord’s directive in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:16) to its reiteration to the Israelites on the eve of their entrance into the Promised land (Deut. 32:46-47), to the teaching of Jesus Christ himself as he prepared his followers for life in his kingdom, the message is the same.

• John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
• John 6:63, 68-69 “’It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life…’  Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’”

When we “thrust away” the help that comes through God’s word we like the Jews who persecuted the Apostle Paul “judge ourselves unworthy” of the “eternal life” his word proclaims but regardless of our background our response to “the word of the Lord” is an indicator of our being appointed to eternal life (Acts 13:46, 48). Are we, like the psalmist, acutely aware of our need for the life and strength of God in our lives?