“Do good to your servant, and I will live; I will obey your word. Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. I am a stranger on earth; do not hide your commands from me. My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times.”
Psalm 119: 17-20
I love Psalm 119. I read Psalm 119:33-40 every morning over myself and ask the Lord for the things in those scriptures (teach me to follow Your decrees, give me understanding, etc). In the past few months, I’ve realized (maybe realized again) the power of the Psalms. Sometimes when I’m feeling a certain way or feeling down about things, my past, my failures etc. I will feel that I’m alone in this. No one else has ever felt this way because no one else has ever been here. Well, that may be true, no one is exactly you, no one has had your exact circumstances. But, God knows you. God loves you. God has chosen you. He is with you always. He has also given you this book, His Word, full of promises, truths, guidance, love, correction, direction and so much more. Why is it that we sometimes choose to go to the Bible for direction or comfort as a last resort?
If you’ve read many of my posts you’ll know I’m always saying “Get in the Word!, Read your Bible!” God has given us all that we need in His Word, we just have to choose to listen. This morning as I was praying and preparing to write I opened up to Psalm 119 to read verses 33-40 and looked down at verses 17-20. Every time I read any part of Psalm 119 something awakens inside me and it’s like it is speaking directly to me! To me, Psalm 119 focuses a lot on obedience. I’ve gone through and highlighted “obey”, “obeyed”, and “obeying” throughout the whole chapter.
Do we want Him to invade our lives and lead and guide us in everything we do? Then we can’t just live as the world lives, we can’t do only the things we want and feed our desires. We must choose Jesus and choose to spend time with Him, choose to obey His Word. Let’s break down these scriptures.
“Do good to your servant, and I will live; I will obey your Word. Open my eyes that I may see your wonderful law.”
There’s that word “obey”. We have chosen to live for Him, so we must choose to obey His Word. This is where I would “pray the scripture”, “Open my eyes that I may see your wonderful law.” Ask the Lord to help you understand, to help you see what He is saying in His Word.
“I am a stranger on earth; do not hide your commands from me.”
John 15:19 tells us that we do not belong to this world but that God has chosen us out of it. Therefore, we are strangers on earth. In asking the Lord to not hide His commands from us, we are asking again that He “open our eyes”. We want to seek Him and we need to know His Word to know who we are in Him, who He says we are, what our identity is in Him, who He is to us and for us. If we are strangers on this earth, we better not also be strangers to Jesus and not know Him well. We cannot “serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24), we cannot be “lukewarm” (Revelation 3:15-16). You either are a stranger to the Lord or a stranger to the world.
“My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times.”
Do you ever feel this way? Consumed with a desire to know Him, to know His ways, to know His Word, to walk closer, do better, live better, resist temptation, walk humbly, live righteously? Yes might be your answer but there is another question that goes along with it. Do you obey those laws at all times? Do you ever feel like you know the right thing to do you just get stuck in your past, your sin, your life, your day-to-day struggles? You’ve got this desire to know Him, to fully surrender to Him but something is holding you back?
The above questions are what went through my mind when I read these scriptures earlier today. We are created to worship the Lord, we delight in obeying His commands (Psalm 119:47). But we must choose to serve Him. We must choose, in those moments, to ask Him to open our eyes, reveal His commands, and help us live and walk righteously with Him.
Read these verses, friend. Read all of Psalm 119 if you can. Choose to put down the distractions, choose to take time for Him instead of something else. Choose to learn and know your Savior more. Choose to obey Him.