Psalm 119:76

(This is an entry from a devotional commentary I am working on from Psalm 119 entitled ‘God and His Word’.  The introduction can be found here, successive entries have covered the 22 sections of the Psalm, and following entries verse by verse.)

 

"O may Your lovingkindness comfort me,

According to Your word to Your servant."

 

‘O may Your lovingkindness comfort me’, yet how often I have refused to be comforted (Psalm 77:2).   Why is that?  ‘According to Your word’ is, in my pride, the last thing I want.  I want to be comforted on my terms, not on Yours Lord!  That is not true comfort, yet my flesh deceives me.  As I learned in my early counseling sessions, I had to come to grips with the reality that I just wanted relief, I didn’t want You.  I wanted temporary relief then to go on running my own life.  Your lovingkindness is such that You won’t allow that.  You know that only in surrender to You there is true and lasting peace.  ""Yield now and be at peace with Him; Thereby good will come to you."  (Job 22:21)

 

‘Having confessed the righteousness of the Lord, he now appeals to his mercy, and while he does not ask that the rod may be removed, he earnestly begs for comfort under it. Righteousness and faithfulness afford us no consolation if we cannot also taste of mercy, and, blessed be God, this is promised us in the word, and therefore we may expect it… Blessed be his name, notwithstanding our faults we are still his servants, and we serve a compassionate Master… That phrase, “according to thy word,” is a very favourite one; it shows the motive for mercy and the manner of mercy. Our prayers are according to the mind of God when they are according to the word of God.’[1]



[1] Spurgeon, Charles Haddon, Treasury of David, on Psalm 119:76, e-Sword edition


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