The Meaning Of Life

https://biblehub.com/nkjv/psalms/119.htm

Confession time. I had to research to find out what Aleph meant. Then Beth, then Gimel. They are the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and there are passages for each letter. As to why the psalmist divided the passages by letter, I have no idea. I just read the psalm, enjoy it, and search for God’s message within it. If you know why it is divided this way, fill me in.

My first comment is that this is a long psalm, and it is important to read it in it’s entirety, but it may not be beneficial to read it all in one setting. It may be hard to reflect on the meaning of the passages, especially when many of them are very similar…they are songs of praise, songs talking about the wonderful character of God, songs of prayer asking for help, songs promising obedience to the commandments, and so forth. And many of these passages are very similar, but there are some points that, as I have read this, have a special impression on me.

There are some verse that ask God to teach the psalmist His Word. I am trying not to be judgmental, Lord knows I am a sinner myself, but there are some things that I would like others to think about. How many people wake up on Sunday morning (or on Saturday, the true Sabbath) (sorry had to throw that in), get dressed in their best, drive to church, go inside, exchange pleasantries with other church member, then sit, sing, participated in the activities, listen to the sermon, then go home and carry on with their daily lives? There is no substitute to reading the Bible for yourself! The psalmist is asking God to teach him, not to direct him to the nearest church! And the only way God can teach you is if you read the Bible for yourself, then pray for understanding. Take this scenario…you’re walking down the street and are approached by a seedy looking character. He says, “Pssst, buddy, got a minute?” He opens his coat, hands you a gun, and says, “I want you to go into that bank over there, rob it of all the money, and bring it to me.” Are you going to follow what he has told you to do? No! Why? Because you know the law. You know it is against the law to rob a bank, and you know that if you follow what this guy has told you, you will end up in prison. It’s the same with church. If you do not read the Bible for yourself and know the law, your pastor can lead you down the path of eternal death! Know the law! When you take driver’s education, they don’t teach you the law, they also show it to you, the statute numbers and the texts of the law. Okay, off the soapbox for now. But, listen to the psalmist. Read your Bible and ask “God” to teach you the law, through His Holy Spirit.

The next thing that has struck me, and it isn’t the first time I’ve read it but it’s the first time it rang a bell in my brain, is talk about the wicked. This psalmist, and many others, talk about protection from the wicked. When I’ve read these before, my mind always goes back into Biblical time, when the psalm was written, and I think about “the wicked” as those that have turned from Christ, pagans, Canaanites, Edomites, those that are lawless and truly wicked in their works. Translate that into modern thought and you might pray and ask God to deliver you from murderers, or rapists, or burglars, or gang members, or whatever it is you feel is “wicked”. But actually, not all of those Canaanites, Edomites, and the other enemies of Israel were murderers, rapists, or robbers. Some where very nice people who simply turned away from God and who worshiped idols. And surely in your life, you have a friend or acquaintance that is a non-believer, or who does not follow Christ. Perhaps if you translate these scriptures into modern ideas, it might mean to pray to God to keep you away from these non-believers in your life. Now, I’m certainly not suggesting you avoid them, or to be hateful or rude to them; we still need to be a light to them to show them what a wonderful Christian can be like. Even Jesus ate and mingled with sinners. What I’m referring to is to pray to avoid the temptation that Satan may have on you through them. Jesus ate with sinners, but Jesus was perfect. Jesus resisted temptation from Satan himself. But with us, we can easily be tempted to sin, and if peer pressure is involved, it would be easy to slip back away from Christianity, away from being close to God. As an example, a non-believer co-worker may ask you to go to a bar afterwork for a drink. You should pray to God to deliver you from that temptation. Or even better, join them, but pray to God to deliver you from the temptation to drink; have a soda or a club soda instead of an alcoholic beverage and show your co-worker you can have a good time without an alcoholic beverage. Now I’m not suggesting that someone who consumes alcohol or who is a non-believer are “wicked”, but if you look at the word as someone who might tempt you to sin, you can easily compare the psalmist and their situation with a situation you might encounter today. No, we should avoid other “sinners”, we just need to pray that we don’t fall to the temptation they might have on us.

Sometimes, I feel as though I don’t have a clue as to what I’m talking about or what I’m trying to say. It is perfectly clear in my mind, but trying to get the nerves from my brain to engage the nerves in my typing fingers is often difficult. So, forgive my ramblings. I’m just trying to seek the true Word of God, and most of the time, I am at a total loss.

I encourage you to read this psalm, especially in sections, but contemplate on the psalmists word and how they affect you or can inspire you today.

And here again, I was trying to cover more than one psalm and I failed miserably.

To end today’s writing, I’ll show you just how old I’m getting. As a child, I rued the day my mother would play this music. The old people in church singing the old time hymns was like nails on a chalkboard to me. But now, now that I’m an old grumpy codger myself, I enjoy them. And here is one of my favorites in my playlist.