The Psalm that convinced me to be in God's word daily.
and how you can easily memorize the Hebrew alphabet because I'm sure that's high on your 'to-do' list.
Psalm 119 is the largest chapter in the Bible, divided into 22 sections acrostically. You can’t see this in the english text, but each section begins with the first and then second and so forth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Simply put, it’s an easy way to memorize something when you know what letter each section will start with. If you look at Psalm 119 and notice Hebrew letters at the top of each section often with the letter written in english next to its simply going through the Hebrew alphabet for you. What you see then on top of the first 8 verses of Psalm 119 is likely “א Aleph.” That’s not a title for the section, it’s just a Hebrew letter. Go through each title in Psalm 119 and you will have said the whole alphabet. I mean, it’s right there for you to even memorize… if you wanted?? Pretty cool? Or maybe that’s just me.
(Briella and I reciting the Hebrew alphabet… i’m telling you it’s so fun!)
But what is so significant about the entirety of Psalm 119 is that it all is speaking of the beauty of God’s word, namely his law. Law or “Torah” as it is translated is not a reference to the list of rules or 10 commandments, but it’s a reference to the entirety of the first 5 books of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In Hebrew it’s called the Torah. In Greek it’s called the Pentateuch.
But “law” isn’t really a sufficient word to translate what Torah really is. In fact, in our current culture when we hear the word ‘law’ probably what we think of is a list of rules, a court of law or basically ‘do this, don’t do that’. But this is not how the ancient Israelites understood law. The word “torah” is better translated as “instruction”.
Imagine showing up to work at a coffee shop and receiving a book entitled “the law for making coffee”. Sounds a bit off putting right? But imagine showing up and being given a book entitled “instructions for making coffee”. You’d probably open it right away. You want to learn how to do this job that you signed up for. You aren’t put off by an instruction manual given to you - you welcome it because you know with out it you would have no direction for your day, no hope of succeeding in your job and you’d be lost trying to figure out what buttons to press and how to grind your coffee and then you’d have a bunch of people not to happy with you - especially if you’re working in the morning.
Now think about you approach God’s word. Do you approach it as list of rules to follow or check whether you are matching up to on any given day, or do you approach at as instruction for how to live the life you were created for?
Do you approach it as gift or burden? Duty or delight?
The ancient Israelites lived in a society where all around them people served and worshipped multiple gods. They were tempted to do the same and often did. But guess what none of the other gods did? None of them gave their followers instructions on how to follow them. None of them came down and interacted with them as beloved people. None of them showed them the way to even worship them. The worshippers of god’s like Baal and Asherah didn’t ever really know what was acceptable or unacceptable, it was a wild guessing game with hopes on any given day that what they brought or what they did would be enough.
This is why you never see the Israelites complain about the law of the Lord. This is why it is always referred to as a gift (even when they don’t follow it). It is never a burden. Because their God, our God came down and said “Here is who I am, here is how you know me, here is how you follow me and here is how you reflect me.” Wouldn’t you devour those words? Those words that not only gave you identity, purpose, direction and hope, but gave you the ability to truly KNOW the one you worshipped?
So this is where I want to start here in this little space.
I want to take you through Psalm 119 as I have been going through it over the past month more deeply, soaking it in, thinking about the words and what they mean for us. For Psalm 119 is the place where my love of God’s word began to grow 25 plus years ago. Psalm 119 is what moved me to make the definitive decision that if it’s true, all of what the Psalmist says about the instruction of God than I will commit to be in it no matter what.
For if we are going to love God’s word,
we must be in it.
But to truly get it in us,
we must be convinced it’s where life is found.
And I have found that one of the main reasons we aren’t soaking in God’s word, is because at the heart level we don’t really believe that the blessed life is the one who walks in the instruction of the Lord. (Psalm 119:1)
AN INVITATION:
Take a few deep breaths.
Ask the Lord “Am I convinced that your word is where I can find life?”,
“What keeps me from coming to your word Lord?”
Take 3-5 minutes to just sit with God in these questions and be curious/write down anything that comes to mind. Bring those things back to Him, share them with a friend. Invite the Holy Spirit into what He stirs within you. He is inviting you into deeper communion with Him and in His kindness will reveal what keeps us from that.