In our family devotions in the evenings we recently started reading through the Psalms. As we read in Psalm 19 I was reminded that it can be read as a study in two kinds of speech. The first six verses recount a sermon painted in the heavens declaring the glory of God. Creation proclaims, yet there is no actual speech. The sun, compared to a bridegroom, rises and runs its course like a champion. This passage reminds all of us in west Texas during the summer something we can’t forget: the sun’s heat. Creation preaches without uttering a single syllable. As a human, I often find myself overwhelmed by the vast and powerful nature of creation.
Then the psalm turns our attention from the vast skies to the Scripture in our hands. The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony is sure, making the simple wise. The precepts are right, the commandment is pure, the fear of the LORD is clean, the rules are true. David piles up six words for God's word and six descriptions of its worth, then tells us it is more to be desired than gold, sweeter than honey from the comb.
Here is what I cannot get past. God's voice is not like our voice. His word revives, makes wise, gladdens, enlightens, and endures forever. Ours does not have the same power or authority. Just look at where David goes next. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep your servant from presumptuous sins. The closer David (or any of us for that matter) stands to the perfect word of God, the more clearly he sees the imperfection of himself. That is always how the scripture illuminates and exposes our insufficiencies.
So the psalm does not end in the heavens, or even in the law. It ends in the voice and the heart of a man. "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer." The Hebrew word for acceptable is clear sacrificial language. David is asking that his speech and his thinking be offered up like an offering on the altar, found pleasing before God. Notice here, he does not call his words inconsequential or meaningless but here, He calls them to be offered before God. Every sentence we speak and every thought we rehearse in the quiet of our hearts should be understood as spoken in the presence of the only One whose word affixed the heavens. Our words are never spoken into a vacuum but instead, they land somewhere, and they land in front of God Almighty.
I cannot make the words of my mouth or the meditations of my heart acceptable in my own strength. It takes a supernatural act of the almighty God to take my heart of stone and exchange it for a heart of flesh. This is why the verse ends with two names. He is my Rock, the One who does not shift and; He is my Redeemer, the One who buys me back. In spite of my failure God makes me His own. I bring Him the muttering of my heart and the words of my mouth, and I ask Him to do with them what I never could. So this is my prayer, and I hope it becomes yours. “Lord, draw my attention always to You. Steady my words on the Rock of my Salvation. Take my whole heart and transform me into the redeemed image You have for me. Let everything I say and everything I allow my mind to dwell on rise to You as repeated reasons to celebrate You.”
