Like the Wind

-

Your Word, Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures.  
Psalm 119: 89-90

I don't believe in "magic," but something a little like magic sometimes seems to happen to me when I meditate on passages in the Bible. 

I say "sometimes" because it doesn't always happen.  Many times when I read the Bible I don't "feel" the "magic." 

And I say "seems" to happen because what happens is so subtle, so internal, so apparently outside of the realm of reason that I'm never quite sure where it comes from or even what it's doing.  

As I write those words, I'm reminded of what Jesus said to Nicodemus about the Holy Spirit: "The wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

What if it's the sweet wind of the Spirit that's wafting through my heart when I "feel" that "magic" while reading God's Word?

Psalm 119 works this kind of magic on my spirit.  When I take the time to meditate on this worship song, the sense that my mind is untwisting and my heart is re-orienting toward God is so strong it's almost tangible.  Without fail, when I go to this Psalm, I come away with a renewed sense of what is right and a deeper longing to share the Psalmist's love for his God.

This experience is something so subjective I find it hard to write about.   I'd like to give a specific example of a particular verse and explain just how it affects me, but I can't.  I guess some things of God are so deep--so spiritual--that they're beyond verbal description.

Sometimes I think it would be nice if I could capture the Spirit of God, put Him in a box, or pin Him down to a display board where I could study Him at my leisure, make notes, and write up a research report on "the topic." 

But, no, that wouldn't be so nice.  If I could do that, I would be God and He would not be.  And that would be a tragedy beyond imagining.

Some of my favorite verses in Psalm 119

I have hidden your word in my heart
    that I might not sin against you. (vs. 11)
Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. (vs. 18)
I run in the path of your commands, 
    for you have set my heart free. (vs. 32)

Am I alone in my experience of this spiritual phenomenon?  
Have you experienced anything like it? 
What are your favorite verses in this Psalm?

I'd love to hear your comments on this topic.

Matthew Henry's commentary on Psalm 119 makes for a good study of the Psalm. 

In researching for this post, I also found a great site on Bible study in general.  
Check out Got Questions? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Ways to Open Your Heart to Renewal

-
The beginning of a new year is a natural time for thinking about renewal. We say good-bye to an old, tired year and look with hope and expectation to a new one. A clean page. A fresh chance. A time to think about how to make our future better--more productive, more significant, more successful, more joy-filled. For Christians, thoughts of renewal usually revolve around God. We belong to Him forever, but we are vacillating human beings, and our relationship with Him can easily stagnate. We need times of refreshing. We need to come again to the fountain of living water. We need to long for Him so deeply that it drives us back into His presence. Thankfully, God prompts that longing. He never forces Himself back into our lives, but the restlessness we feel without Him invariably draws us. So what to do when we feel the restlessness? When we become aware that something's not right in our spirits? God is the One who must rescue us from the doldrums of spiritual lethargy, but there are st...
Read more

My Truth, Spoken in Love

-
Image
As I’m sure all of you know, I have a policy of not sharing opinions about politics on Facebook. I don’t believe Facebook is a great platform for discussing things that we all tend to feel passionate about, unless those passions are strongly loving and able to be expressed positively. But I am challenged by my friend, Gina Bell’s post, to break with my tradition about that policy this once. At least the politics part of it—not the loving and positive one. I hope I can express my beliefs lovingly and positively here. I never want to offend anyone, not because I’m afraid of their reaction, but because I don’t want to hurt anyone, or add more heat than light to whatever issue we’re talking about. I want everything I share here to be not only truthful and loving but uplifting and profitable for making the world a better place. So here goes: my break with tradition—my thoughts on the current political climate in the U.S. Like many of my Facebook friends, I am worried ...
Read more

Five Common Myths About Sharing the Gospel

-
Image
This article was originally posted in the FECB blog on January 22, 2013 We mean well.   We really want our friends to know Jesus.   But too often we approach them with wrong ideas in our heads.   If we really want to be effective witnesses, we should be aware of five common myths about evangelism. Myth #1: There are two kinds of people:   them and us.   It's a mistake to see everyone as being on one side of the fence or the other.   That's not the appropriate metaphor.   There's no fence.   There's a road, and we're all walking on it.   For sure, there's a point in every person's journey when they choose to follow Jesus. But it's only a step along the path.   The road continues.   None of us has arrived until we get to heaven, and we're all learning as we go.   The people we want to share Jesus with are just fellow travelers.   Realizing this opens up a whole new way of seeing others, and it will cha...
Read more