Psalm 19:14 (NLT)
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my
heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
He prays to God to keep him from sin, and then begs He
would accept his performances; for, if we favour our sins, we cannot expect God
should favour us or our services. ~Matthew Henry
In her book Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus, Lois
Tverberg retells the following story about a famous first century rabbi named
Rabbi Akiva:
One day as Rabbi Akiva was shepherding his flocks, he
noticed a tiny stream trickling down a hillside, dripping over a ledge on its way
toward the river below. Below was a massive boulder. Surprisingly, the rock
bore a deep impression. The drip, drip, drip of water over the centuries had
hollowed away the stone. Akiva commented, "If mere water can do this to
hard rock, how much more can God's Word carve a way into my heart of
flesh?" Akiva realized that if the water had flowed over the rock all at
once, the rock would have been unchanged. It was the slow but steady impact of
each small droplet, year after year, that completely reformed the stone.
Lois Tverberg comments:
When I first started studying the Bible's Hebraic
context, I wanted one commentary that would teach me everything, one class that
would explain it all. If I could learn all the "right answers" in one
marathon event, all the better. I find now that God likes to reveal truth over
many years, as I study alongside others. I realize now that big
"splashes" aren't usually God's way of doing things. Instead, through
the slow drip of study and prayer, day after day, year after year, he shapes us
into what he wants us to be.
God loves to teach us lessons. Each of us needs to take
the time to meditate on God’s word and speak with Him about things on our
heart. God is our rock, the solid foundation on which we can steady our life.
God is also our redeemer, our salvation, and the sustainer of our life. Let us
be pleasing to God that God should favor the things we do.
No comments:
Post a Comment