Psalm 119, Verse 98

If my behaviour reflects more of Your wisdom compared to those who are upset with me, Adonai, it is only because You have highlighted for me the importance of paying close attention to the instruction in Your word. I see Your commands like buoys on a stormy sea or a lighthouse in thick fog—always keeping me safe from the impending danger that lurks in the shadows. In me there is no good thing, O Master and I am no better than any of my fellowmen. What makes us wiser and different and better is obedience to the wisdom found in Your word. I choose to follow Your instructions in obedience and humility O Saviour, for they alone can keep me from getting my ship wrecked.

Lately, I have found myself drawn to Psalm 119. Charles Spurgeon beautifully describes it thus:

There is no title to this Psalm, neither is any author's name mentioned. It is not just long only; but equally excels in breadth of thought, depth of meaning, and height of fervour. It is like the celestial city which lieth four square, and the height and the breadth of it are equal. Many superficial readers have imagined that it harps upon one string, and abounds in pious repetitions and redundancies; but this arises from the shallowness of the reader's own mind: those who have studied this divine hymn, and carefully noted each line of it, are amazed at the variety and profundity of the thought.

It contains no idle word; the grapes of this cluster are almost to bursting full with the new wine of the kingdom. The more you look into this mirror of a gracious heart the more you will see in it. Placid on the surface as the sea of glass before the eternal throne, it yet contains within its depths an ocean of fire, and those who devoutly gaze into it shall not only see the brightness, but feel the glow of the sacred flame. It is loaded with holy sense, and is as weighty as it is bulky.

The Psalm is alphabetical. Eight stanzas commence with one letter, and then another eight with the next letter, and so the whole Psalm proceeds by octonaries quite through the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, from Aleph to Tau.

I thought I should post a verse each day in the hope that we all, including myself, may get an opportunity to reflect on them.