21 Days of Prayer in Psalm 119 (Day #7)

Read Psalm 119:49-56

"Remember"

Does God need to be reminded about what he has said? This stanza, where all the verses start with the Hebrew letter Zayin, makes it sound that way. Sometimes amid troubling our circumstances we can feel that way. The verses that stood out to me today in my devotions were verses 49-50,

“Remember your word to your servant,

    in which you have made me hope.

This is my comfort in my affliction,

    that your promise gives me life.”

When the psalmist asks God to remember the word of promise that he had communicated, he is not suggesting that God had forgotten, or needed to be reminded, but was taking a stand in faith. It was because he trusted the word of the Lord that he calls on the Lord to remember it. The concept of remembering seems to have been used regularly in the sense of “call it to mind and act upon it.” The psalmist was asking God to bring to pass what had been promised. This is faith that prays. What has God said to us? Trust him enough to ask him to bring it to fruition!

If we read a little further, hopefully, we see that the psalmist also remembered and acted upon what he called to mind.

“I remember your name in the night, O Lord,

    and keep your law.” (v.55)

Tonight, as you think about the promises we have in Christ, remember his name (his entire nature and character) and act on it by both obeying what he has commanded and by trusting what he has promised—for life is the result of his promises being fulfilled, in his name, on our behalf. Doing this is truly a blessing!  “Just Zayin!”

O Lord, remember who you made me to be, and what you have called me to do. I cannot accomplish it in my own strength. Let my heart be filled with songs of trust and praise when I think of you and may you bring to harvest the seeds of promise you have sown in my heart. Amen.

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

Photo by Tom Pumford on Unsplash

                "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?