Psalm 119:144 – Testimonies

Your testimonies are righteous forever.
Give me understanding that I may live.

This verse illustrates a point I’ve made a few times during this series. The psalmist does not draw clear distinctions between the various terms he uses for God’s law. There’s the overarching “Torah” or “instruction,” but it’s very difficult to differentiate functions for the different aspects of this instruction in the text. This is why I believer the psalmist is using a variety of terms both for literary value (imagine this whole psalm with one word for “law”!) but also to emphasize the broad nature of God’s law.

This runs from historical narrative, personal experience, and instructions for specific circumstances, all the way to general ethical principles, all wound together. It’s important to understand this. Logically, we distinguish law, as such, from other things in scripture, but this Psalm is not attempting to make careful literary or logical distinctions. He’s praising God for the whole.

In the law as conceived here we learn that God creates, judges, calls, rescues, guides, blesses, and curses. God interacts with people in many and varied ways. Much of this interaction, in fact, I would argue, the vast majority of the interaction comes in what we would call the natural order of the universe.

We sometimes look for God in action, and when we fail to find spectacular things happening, we think God is no longer active. I recall in a class I was teaching someone asking me why God is no longer so active as in the Bible. My first reaction is to look around the room and note that we are still here. The laws of nature are still functioning. That’s God in action.

Someone did something wonderful for me and for my family this week. It was a complete surprise. There was no apparent violation of the laws of nature, but I still believe it was a miracle, and I say this without intending to take anything away from the person who did it.

So when we get to this verse and we see the prayer, “Give me understanding that I may live,” we see God in action, always and everywhere. “Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” God is, by nature, involved with everything.

Some people wonder why we should be totally dependent on God’s grace for salvation. Let’s go back further. We’re totally dependent on God’s grace for existence. I like to call this creating grace, the realization that our very existence is a gift. So any other dependence on God is simply derivative of that initial complete dependence. You can’t pay God, because you’d be paying God out of the Divine bank account.

There’s one other special aspect of this prayer. It’s a prayer that will be fulfilled. For Christians, I would point to James 1:5: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all generously and willingly, and it will be given.” The understanding or the wisdom is a gift that will be given.

What might change for you today if you relied on God to answer this prayer?