Psalm 119:16, 47, 72, 97, 129, 143b
Verse 16, "I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word."
V. 47, "...for I delight in your commands because I love them"
V. 72, "The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold."
V. 97, "Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long."
V. 129, "Your statutes are wonderful; therefore I obey them."
V. 143b, "...but your commands are my delight."
(Emphasizes added)
My Mom and I were going through Psalm 119 this month and we noticed how often (even more than the few verses above) David mentions delighting in God's law and decrees. How often do we grudgingly pick up our Bibles because we are told too? How often are we annoyed because we are forced to meditate or memorize them? Yet David declared, "Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long." Should not we try and meditate on God's law all day long? He says that God's commands are his delight and he loves them. I believe we also should delight and love God's commands as well as the Bible that holds them. We should not drag ourselves to the couch to read our Bibles because our Dad or Mom said we had too and then read one chapter and think we do not have to read anymore for the whole day. We should not feel obligated to read a tiny bit before we indulge ourselves in a novel of sorts (I am not saying novels are bad--I am particularly fond of them). How much time do you spend in prayer? We think spending five minutes in prayer and Bible reading it plenty. We have over ten hours in a day, can we only give God a chapter of Bible reading? We should delight in reading God's Word, we should love His commands and the law that He gave us. What are we thinking when we spend just five minutes with our Creator!? Should not we pray to Him, love Him, meditate on His law and His Word all day long. Get our lazy bodies (mine in particular) up earlier in the morning to read and pray for at the very least more than five minutes!
And I do not want you to get the wrong impression (not that you did), I am not perfect with this either. There are some days which I am ashamed of how much I read in my Bible, but I keep working on it to read and meditate more and more and more. My Mother, for instance, gets strangely grumpy if she doesn't read her Bible. Notice how she gets strangely grumpy with not reading her Bible, not with having to read it. So, let us challenge ourselves to read, love, meditate, memorize and delight in God's law.
