Route 66 Through The Year: Psalm 19

Spring Harvest’s ‘Route 66 Through the Year’ is designed to take readers on a tour through each of the 66 books of the Bible over the course of a year, with each day’s reading featuring a short passage and comment written by a variety of Spring Harvest speakers.

Each Saturday features a Psalm, and I contributed notes for today on Psalm 19.

Read: Psalm 19

Here is a beautiful example of prayerful meditation at work, bringing together reflections on God’s words in the heavens, the words of the law of the Lord, and the words of the psalmist himself.

The psalm begins with the word of creation (19:1-6), with the psalmist gazing at the heavens and hearing (not seeing, note!) the glory of God as the skies – both day and night – declare it and proclaim it with their voices, and do so continually and universally.

But the psalmist moves from the word of creation to the word of the covenant (19:7-11) – the law through which the Lord revealed himself to his people, which bound him to them and each other, and which facilitates life-giving communion with the covenant God. This much can be seen in 19:7-9 where each line describes a different dimension of God’s word and its beneficial sustenance for God’s people.

And so the word of creation and the word of the covenant lead to a word of commitment (19:12-14). The psalmist’s meditation on the created world and his engagement with the covenant word shapes how he prays and how he wants to live his life.

Lord, may what we say and what we think be the kinds of words and thoughts that have sat under the judgment of your word and reflect your heart.