September 12, 2019 -- Psalm 119:15 -- Thoughts shaping actions

I will meditate on your precepts

and fix my eyes on your ways.

Psalm 119:15 English Standard Version

This particular psalm is an acrostic poem—each of the twenty-two stanzas consisting of eight verses begins with a letter from the Hebrew alphabet. So in the first stanza each verse begins with the Hebrew letter aleph. The second stanza, the one we are studying now, begins each verse with the Hebrew letter beth. I mention this because it may be the case that the writer memorized the psalm and having the eight verses of each stanza begin with a particular Hebrew letter would aid the memorization of this psalm. When someone memorizes, someone is meditating on, calling to mind and making part of himself whatever it is that he has fixt his thoughts on.

This author, inspired by the Spirit of God to write these words, recognized that repeating the precepts of God over and over again would help him to stay in line with the will of God. Psalm 16:6 notes: “the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.” What is regulated for our lives as the right pathway is in fact the best course for our lives. For the will of our King is that we have life and have it to full through Jesus Christ.

The invitation of Jesus Christ is that we follow where He leads us. His steps are radically different than anything offered by the world. Jesus calls us to deny our self-indulgences. He calls us to leave the life of sin celebrated by our world and instead, fix our thoughts on Him, confess Him before the world, and our friends and family, our peer group and to our own hearts.

I have heard this psalm described as something like a school boy exercise in poetry. You can almost hear a perky teacher requiring of the groaning students: “Make each stanza begin with this letter. Keep strictly to this formula.” I do not read as such a plodding exercise—that makes it seem joyless. Instead, I see in it the hopefulness of the psalmist for the young and the old, for the famous and the unknown, every person in every age and walk of life to fix their gaze on Him Who alone can lead us in the way of life. As the psalmist recites the eight verses of this stanza, all beginning with a “B” sound, he is reminding himself that the Author of Life is leading him in the way everlasting.

As the hymn-writer so poignantly wrote, we pray: “Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my life!”. With this psalmist we pray: let our eyes and our thoughts be focused on You so clearly and with such love that each step we take this day brings You honour and draws us a step closer to the blessed surety of eternity in Your mighty and glorious presence. By Your Spirit train us in the holiness given to us in Jesus Christ. Amen