Who said a picture is worth a thousand words?
When we explore the depths of God’s greatness, there is no shortage of scriptures and stories that affirm the great truth over and over.
The psalmist David pauses himself many times as he considers all the Lord in His bountiful goodness has done for him.
Of all those places, few passages surpass Psalm 139.
Ah, the powerful words! Listen:
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”
I’ve often thought that few words or thoughts in the human language compare to this declaration of praise. From the first utterance:
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me!”
We stand amazed at the beauty and grandeur of those thoughts. We wonder even more when we come to the end of the psalm and David prays an almost unimaginable prayer: “Lord,” he says, “search me and know me.”
Few of us are bold enough to pray such a prayer. Hold onto that thought for a few weeks.
While meditating on the power of words, I ran across a speech by Paul Harvey in his final dissertation to a large committee of journalists. At one point in his speech, he makes a curious point.
It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, he says, but then he adds –
“But can anyone tell me what the author of the quotation looks like?”
Naturally, no one could – yet those words have lived for hundreds of years. Sometimes words overwhelm even the best of pictures.
Of course, Mr. Harvey proves his point with the most eloquent words of his own.
He looks back through the years to the thousands of pictures he has drawn in the minds of listeners in all of his newscasts and “The Rest of the Story” series.
It’s beautiful watching him draw vivid pictures without even one stroke from a paintbrush other than the brush of words:
“You trust me to paint pictures on the mirror of your mind,” he says in his classic Paul Harvey voice, “and I will let you feel such agony … and ecstasy … such misery and such magnificence as you would never be able to feel by looking at it.”
Very true. How a writer or speaker can create every emotion imaginable in his listeners – agony, ecstasy, misery – and thoughts of grandeur, too.
The Holy Spirit trusts David to do this very thing in the one-hundred-thirty-ninth psalm.
He paints a picture of the Lord’s grandeur and greatness on the mirror of readers’ minds for centuries.
He begins with this –
“Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways …”
Painting pictures on the mirror of our minds with just a few words – it truly is a beautiful thing!
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.