A Multitude of Facets

I adore the Word of God.

I began seriously engaging with Scripture when I was fifteen years old. I made a simple promise to God that I would read one chapter a day, and that practice became a rhythm that has accompanied me for most of my life.

The Word has become part of who I am.

And as I have journeyed this earth-side adventure, through all its ups and downs, hills and valleys, joys and sorrows, questions and discoveries, I find myself wondering how anyone navigates this life without it.

The Word is a place I return to because it always feels like home.

A place where I listen.

A place where I find wisdom, correction, comfort, perspective, and sometimes answers I didn’t even know I was looking for.

I am reading through the Bible this year using a great plan I found on YouVersion’s Bible app titled “Scripture Woven Together: A One-Year Reading Plan” by The Word for the World Translators.

Have you ever read Psalm 119 through from beginning to end?

I did this week as part of my study and I want to share what I learned with you.

Psalm 119, in all its lengthiness, is offering us a lens to view God’s vision from a multitude of facets.

In this Psalm, the commandments aren’t portrayed as oppressive restrictions. The psalmist delights in them.

“I will rejoice at Your commandments,

Which I love.” (Psalm 119:47)

This is a radically different posture toward God’s commands and offers the truth of this biblical rhythm:  Love changes obedience from obligation into delight.

God’s Word doesn’t simply tell me what to do.

It teaches me how God sees.

Psalm 119 is almost like the psalmist is holding the Word of God up to the light and slowly turning it. The source never changes, but with every turn another facet catches the light.

Statutes: what God has established.

Precepts: what God has entrusted us to attend to.

Commandments: what God has spoken with authority.

Ordinances: what God has determined to be right.

Testimonies: what God has declared to be true.

The Word: what God lovingly teaches.

And all those facets belong to one revelation from one God.

Psalm 119:130 says, “The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.”

The unfolding gives light.

What a picture! We aren’t changing the Word by examining its different facets. We are turning it, studying it, lingering over it and discovering light that was already there. We are seeing the beauty of God’s Word from so many angles.

And Psalm 119 becomes almost like a jewel in our hands. We are turning it towards the light to expose another facet, then another…

Don’t rush past what God is revealing simply because you’ve seen it before.

The repeated words aren’t redundant.

Statutes. Precepts. Commandments. Ordinances. Testimonies. Word.

Each one gives us another facet of God’s relationship with His people and His instruction.

Love changes the posture of obedience.

This may be the theological heart of the piece. It sounds like someone who has discovered that God’s ways are good, trustworthy, life-giving, and worthy of love.

Scripture rewards the lingerer.

Linger.

I love that word.  Sometimes it’s so difficult for me to move on with my morning…I get stuck.

But a good stuck.

Because what if the Father occasionally gives us something we aren’t supposed to move past?

What if the holy interruption is the whole point?

And suddenly your Bible reading plan has become something entirely different.

Then, I am no longer trying to get through the Bible, I am allowing the Word to get into me.

Engraved deep in the depths of my heart, as the Holy Spirit breathes on it.

After reading all 176 verses, I began to notice something: He’s saying the same thing…but he’s not saying it the same way.

This is where the light came on. Holding this scripture, re-reading it, then again out loud and slowly. Tasting each word as it is spoken out to the atmosphere.

Look at it from here.

Now look at it from here.

Turn it again.

There’s another facet.

Look longer. Sit with the Father, ask Him “what does it mean?”

What if, the whole point of this lengthy psalm is to teach us just this?

What if this is what the Psalmist meant when He said “taste and see?”

”Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” ‭‭(John‬ ‭6‬:‭35‬ NASB)

What if this is instruction to savor and digest the very bread of life.

To let it move from the page into our hearts, from our eyes into our understanding, from our understanding into the way we live.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭1‬ ‭NASB)

The Word became flesh.

The Word has a face.

The Word has a name.

Jesus.

The Word of God does not change, but the longer we behold it, the more of its multitude of facets we begin to see and then the miracle of it all….We begin to fall deeper and deeper in love with Jesus.