Welcome to the “Front-Porch.”
Coming again to Psalm 119, there is splendor and wonder in this piece of spiritual literature that comprises 176 verses.
“One thought pervades it,” Maclaren says, “the surpassing excellence of the Law; and the beauty and power of the psalm lie in the unwearied reiteration of that single idea.”
That theme – the “Surpassing excellence of the Law” – does not get very far from the psalmist’s mind. He stays as close to that theme as we are to stay close to God’s teaching in our daily walk.
God’s Word is the true spiritual difference-maker in a man’s life, the psalmist seems to want to say: 1) Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the Lord; 2) Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts; 3) They do not compromise with evil, and they walk only in his paths; 4) You have charged us to keep your commandments carefully; 5) Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees; 6) Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands; 7) As I learn your righteous regulations, I will thank you by living as I should; 8) I will obey your decrees. Please don’t give up on me!
The psalmist establishes in the very first stanza that the difference in our lives will be because we have chosen to “walk in the law of the Lord” (v. 1, kjv).
Other thoughts came to me as I considered the power of the law of God. It is not limited to the printed word. The word carved in stone or printed on paper is what we tend to think of when we hear the word “law.” But God’s law goes beyond that. God’s law is what establishes the harmony between the moon and the ocean’s tide, keeping the ocean from flooding the earth.
And it is what keeps the stars faithful in their orbit, the sun rising and setting like clockwork, and what makes sure the sparrow never goes hungry and the skies turn to brass. All of these things along with a million other laws that the Lord set in motion from the very beginning. God’s law, indeed, is excellent, and powerful, and beautiful.
Maclaren concurs with the psalm’s rarity: “There is music in its monotony, which is subtly varied. Its verses are like the ripples on a sunny sea, alike and impressive in their continual march, and yet each catching the light with a difference, and breaking on the shore in a tone of its own.”
Open the poem and begin searching. You readily can see those “ripples on a sunny sea … breaking on the shore in a tone of its own.”
It is “a star of the first and greatest magnitude in the firmament of the Psalms,” says another, “a study set to the murmuring of the sea … a lullaby by which a troubled soul may be softly and sweetly hushed to rest.”
Just as we seem to think we have an understanding of the power of God’s Word, we realized something else. On a deeper level, God’s Word in the psalm points us to that greater Word, the “Word made flesh.”
We cannot read the beautiful psalm – with its verses like the ripples on a sunny sea and its gentleness serving as a lullaby to soothe the troubled soul – without thoughts of the Word Who was in the beginning, He Who was with God there in that ageless past, and He Who Himself is God.
Now we understand the wonder of it all.
Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently came out of retirement twice for teaching tours at Ferris and Waxahachie High Schools. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) have slowed down some of their travels and reconvened in their evangelistic work with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the working to publish “Crossing The Georgia Line” that ran in the Ellis County Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, and see frontporchgospel.com.