Your promise gives me life.

 

Psalm 119:49-56

 

October 18, 2022

 

Zayin

 Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope.  This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.  The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law.  When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord.  Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law.  Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.  I remember your name in the night, O Lord,  and keep your law.  This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts.

 

The Hebrew word Zayin:  God’s word gives us strength.

 

Not only this Psalmist but others in the Scriptures have cried out to God to remember His word or His promises.  Is God forgetful?  God gave this insight to Isaiah and it is recorded in Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”   God is all 

Knowing, King David gives us this insight in Psalm 139:1-4, “O Lord, You have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thoughts from afar.  You scrutinize my path and my lying down And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.  Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all.”  Yes, all-knowing and has never forgotten anything, but He loves His Children to ask about His promises, and that was what the Psalmist is doing.  For it is in those promises that we find our hope and when we read one pray it back to the Father. When I lay in that hospital bed, it was great to have visitors but it was those long nights, where I recalled the promises of my Father to me, that restored my hope.

 

“Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law.”  Father, it is so easy to get self-righteous when I see evil all around, especially from those in leadership in our government.  But it fades very fast when you allow me to be reminded of my day without you in my life and even then I allowed my flesh to rule over Your Spirit.  These people are in great need of our prayers, for they are blind to Truth, Your Word is true.

 

“I remember your name in the night, O Lord,  and keep your law.  This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts.”  My dear Father and God, my Creator, and Redeemer, I give thanks for my affliction for in it I’ve learned you are my only Source, my only hope, and my life.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice