Our Heart's Longings...

 I am a stranger in the earth; Do not hide Your commandments from me. My soul breaks with longing For Your judgments at all times.--Psalm 119:19-20

To My Sweet Daughters,

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the bible.  The content of it is all about the Word of God and the blessings and benefits derived from its study.  Going to take a detour here to Psalm 19 because it gives us a preview of the benefits in just a few verses as opposed to Psalm 119's 176 verses.  It tells us that the law of the Lord is perfect and that it converts the soul.  The testimony of the Lord is sure making the simple, wise.  The statutes of the Lord are right and they rejoice the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure and enlightens the eyes.  The fear of the Lord is clean and endures forever.  The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether and are more to be desired than fine gold and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.  By them we are warned and in keeping them is great reward!!!  Wow! Wow! Wow!

Psalm 119  is broken up into 22 sections of eight verses each.  If you read it in Hebrew you would find that each sections begins with a specific letter of the Hebrew alphabet beginning with the first and ending with the last letter.  For example the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the letter Aleph.  Each of the eight verses then in the first section begins with that letter.  In the second section each verse would begin with Beth..the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet and so on through the entire alphabet. It is said that the Hebrew children learned their alphabet by learning this psalm.  I really like that! Learn the alphabet and meditate on the excellencies of the word of God. 


Getting back to verse 19 and 20...David says that his soul breaks with longing for the judgements of God always.  That is quite a statement.  His soul breaks for His judgments...The word judgment here is not speaking to the execution of a sentence but to the declared judgments of God.  God's commandments and doctrine of the Word are God's judgments about moral and spiritual things.  God's decisions, if you will, on what is right or what is wrong.  The bible then is the book of His judgments.  It is the supreme authority..not a word of it may be changed or questioned.

The writer of the Psalm says he is like a foreigner in a strange land.  Believers may be in the world but they are not of the world.  The desires of their hearts should be very different from those of the unbelievers in the world.  Because of this they do not value (and should not) value worldly wisdom at all, but look only to God and His precepts for guidance throughout their journey here.  Their deepest desire should be for their God's abiding presence in their lives directing their steps.  They look to His word to guide them unerringly to their final destination

The Bible tells us that we are to keep our hearts with all diligence for out them spring the issues of life.  It also says that as a man thinks in his heart he is.  And finally out of the abundance of our hearts, our mouths speak.  Spurgeon says that one of the best tests of a man's character will be found in his deepest and heartiest longings.  Uh oh...  Truly, girls, our deepest heart's desires are like forecasts for what we will become. Look carefully at your desires and see the picture it provides you of your future.  As a man desires or longs in his heart so is he.  Again, what are your deepest desires? They should be for your God and His word.  Look ten years down the road...what do you see..have your desires drawn you closer to your Lord or further into the world.  Have they led you off His path and out of His will? Or have they led you to His holy hill...to His tabernacle..to His sanctuary and finally into His presence? 


Spurgeon says that our spiritual desires are the shadows of coming blessings.  What God intends to give us, He first sets us longing for.   Prayer is wonderfully effective because it is the embodiment of a longing that is inspired by God because He intends to bestow the blessing prayed for!  It all comes from Him. Whatever your holy longings might be, He will fulfill them.  View them as glimpses of good things to come.

 David longed after God and His word.  Girls, ask God for this kind of longing and let it be the cry that comes from the deepest part of your heart.  He will then place those desires on your heart that are the "tokens" of good things to come and will come and fill you with all His fullness. Delight in His law...desire it and His presence in your life above everything else.  May each one of our hearts break with our desire for Him!

The Lord is at work in each one of us.  The results of His work are always precious.  Psalm 145:19 says He fulfill the desires of those who fear Him.  The desire for Him is precious and what comes from that desire is beyond what can be described with words.

If you do not know the Lord, hear these words from Psalm 10...they are for you.  Ask Him to give you a desire to know Him and see what He will do!

Psalm 10:17 You have heard the desire of the humble; You will prepare their heart; You will cause Your ear to hear."


Proverbs 10:24 says the desires of the righteous will be granted and Matthew 5:6 says, Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled. 

Love
Mom