A Longing Pant

Psalm 119:129 adds imagery to what we’ve been sharing for a few days now…

Your statutes are wonderful; therefore I obey them. The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.  I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands.

Imagine panting for God’s word, longing for it with our mouths wide open, standing under it lips parted, drinking it in like the falling rain.

There are good reasons to obey God’s word, if we understand.

They are wonderful.

They give light.

They give understanding to the simple. (they’re not complicated to follow)

They satisfy.

Why is it that this truth is so hard to grasp, and even harder to long for, and pant for?

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To understand something is to have good insight or judgment about it.

Psalm 119 says How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!  I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

I don’t really think most of us understand God’s ways and words.  If we did, we would want to digest them a lot more than we do, because they would be “sweeter than honey.”  My husband puts honey in his coffee every morning! 

I also don’t think most of us understanding His directives, because if we did we would hate everything that went against what He says, and we toy with those things too much to hate them.

I don’t think most of us understand God’s words to us, because if we did we would walk without fear, realizing that his word illuminates our path and shows us where to go.

Maybe we should pray for more understanding.

Three Things

Psalm 119 continues to say, Teach me, Lord, the way of your decrees, that I may follow it to the end.  Give me understanding, so that I may keep your law and obey it with all my heart. Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight.

Three things the psalmist is asking for God to do:

Teach him, give him, and direct him.

He first wants to be taught God’s ways, and at the end of his request he wants God to direct him.

But in the middle he asks for understanding.

Why?

When we finally understand and comprehend that God’s ways are life, they are good, and they reach the desired end of completeness, then we will want to follow them with all of our hearts.

And in them we will find delight.

I’m thinking that the reason most of us don’t follow his ways with delight is because we lack understanding of the goodness of them…

Something to think about.

I Run

Psalm 119:31 says I hold fast to your statutes, Lord; do not let me be put to shame. I run in the path of your commands, for you have broadened my understanding.

I grew up holding fast to the words of the Lord, because I was afraid if I didn’t, lightning might strike me.  And that produced fear.  And that zapped joy.

However, as I’ve learned that God is a loving Father and he has great things in store for my life, even when my vision is skewed and limited, I find myself delighting in his Word instead of fearing it.

But I want to run in the path of his commands!

And as my understanding of his ways and his love broadens as I walk closely with him and he with me, I believe that my pace will quicken, and my smile will widen, and my feet will lift off the ground…

Running with delight at the sound of his voice as I follow…

Won’t you run with me?

The Beginning

Psalm 111 sums up what we need to know in this life:

He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever—holy and awesome is his name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.

When we know and believe that God has provided us a way out of this evil word because he is a covenant (promise) keeper, and that he is a holy God who cannot tolerate evil, and that his name is above all names – then we are wise.

But that’s just the beginning of wisdom.

We then follow his Word by obeying it and digesting it and loving it – and we gain understanding.

To him belongs praise.

Forever.

That’s a good life lived.

Forever

Psalm 92 says How great are your works, Lord, how profound your thoughts! Senseless people do not know, fools do not understand,  that though the wicked spring up like grass

 and all evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever.

Look at the progression of this passage.

The psalmist begins by stating how great and profound the Lord is towards him.  His thoughts toward us are endless and imaginative and amazing!

He then realizes something.

We look at evildoers in the world and wonder why – why do they get away with the evil that they inflict on their children, innocent people in theaters, careful drivers on the road – and wreak such havoc on the earth?

Here we are reminded that it’s senseless to think that God is not aware and that evil will reign.  In fact, the opposite is true.  Evil will be destroyed.

Forever.

And until that time, we wait in understanding this one thing:

God is great. God is God.  God is the righteous judge. And we are not.

Do You Get It?

Near the end of the book of Job, there’s this great discourse between Job and God.  Job questions God because, of course, Job is suffering.  God answers him in the most powerful way.  Here’s a bit of it:

God says, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand…Who gives the ibis wisdom or gives the rooster understanding?

Job says, You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.

There is no way we can possibly understand God’s infinite power and smarts when he created the world – wow – what a mighty God we serve.  And just looking all the animals he created, the intricacies of their makeup, the colors of their feathers, and the sounds that they make – we can’t possibly fathom the genius of our God’s creative hand.

And yet we question his involvement in our lives….

Job finally gets that. 

Our minds are finite.  Our understanding is limited.

But we serve a wonderful God whose mind is, well, mind-blowing.  And his understanding is without limit.

I want to get that.