October 4 - Psalm 19

October 4 - Psalm 19:1-14

Do you have things in your memory that have no context? I hate it when people quote lines from movies. I recognize the line, but for the life of me, I can't think of what movie it has come from.

My father always opened his sermon with the words, "Let the words of my mouth..." at which point the congregation would respond with, "and the meditations of my heart..." followed by the joint recitation of "be acceptable in your heart, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."

These words were simply a part of my existence each week. It never occurred to me that I might find them in scripture. Ok, I probably thought my father was incredibly creative. Imagine my surprise, when reading the Bible, I discovered the source of that call and response. This Psalm has been special to me ever since.

The entire Psalm is glorious. What an affirmation of the awareness of God in the world. All creation sees His glory. People don't need to wait to be told of the Creator, the heavens declare, the skies proclaim, their voice goes out into all the world. God doesn't need a language to tell of His glory, all creation sings of it. (Read what Paul says about this in Romans 1:18-20.)

The second witness (after creation) to God's power and perfection is the Law. Psalm 19:7-11 lifts up 6 different concepts of the Law: Law/perfect, statutes/trustworthy, precepts/right, commands/radiant, fear of the Lord/pure, ordinances/sure. This highlights more of the beauty of Hebrew poetry in its use of repetition. The Psalmist doesn't want us to have any doubt as to the qualities of God's word, so his use of repetition reinforces over and over what he is saying.

In this Psalm, we find 3 very different ways that God proclaims His presence to the world: in the silent witness of Creation, in the Word of God found through the Law, and finally in the life that is lived by a man walking with God. So unassuming, so natural, yet so very profound.

There's more to these Psalms than you ever realized, isn't there!

Today, focus on how your life is part of the testimony that tells the world about our Creator.

May the words of our mouths,
and the meditations of our hearts
be acceptable in thy sight,
O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer!