Thursday, June 15, 2017

Job Description

In case you didn't know, Psalm 119 is long. Like 176 verses long. I don't think I've ever read the entire psalm before today. If you haven't, I'd highly recommend doing so. If you do, you'll find:

God is responsible for teaching, understanding, revealing, directing, turning, fulfilling, lighting, sustaining, unfolding, shining, preserving, opening, removing, remembering, giving discernment, and peace. And we are responsible for obeying, praising, learning, hiding, recounting, meditating, considering, seeing, delighting, choosing, setting, running, keeping, walking, seeking, remembering, finding, hastening, not delaying, longing, hoping, not forgetting, and not departing.

James 1:17 tells us that Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. Today as I read this Psalm slowly and deliberately, I realized that everything God is responsible for is a gift. But in order for us to recognize the gifts He wants to give, we have to know who He is and what He's about. And the only way we can hope to do that is through His word.

As I underlined so many parts, the ones that stick out the most are the pleas the psalmist expresses: give me understanding, turn my heart, fulfill your promise, take away the disgrace, remember your word, open my eyes. Sometimes I think we get so caught up in the doing and the reading that we honestly think we are the ones that control the growing, too. But we can never forget, even if we plant and water our own gardens, it will only ever be God that makes it grow. He alone determines the amount of fruit we will bear and in what season it will come.

I don't know what that does for your heart, but the promise of His faithfulness makes my heart want to soar. The understanding that He knows I need to be taught and given time to learn makes the burden easier and the yoke lighter. He really isn't expecting perfection from any of us as much as we might think He is. He just desperately wants our hearts to surrender to His control and pursue Him and His ways more than anything else.


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