Heart in God's Word

About 15 years ago I repeatedly listened to a cassette (yeah, that's right, a cassette.) of a Christian singer named Steve Wiggins, and one of my favorite songs was called "Eighteen Inches Journey". The premise was that even though it's a short physical distance between our heads and our hearts as body parts, the movement from intellectual assent of truths and assimilating those truths into values that shape our lives is monumental.

"It’s an eighteen inches journey for some men it’s a million miles away", he sings.

This concept has resonated with me recently as I've been reading Psalm 119 over and over again. It's plenty long - 176 verses - and written in second person so it could easily double as a prayer guide. And I've always known it was a great psalm to read and be reminded of the importance of knowing God's Word and following it to be blessed by God in life. But in the past couple of weeks I've been struck by the number of times the psalmist refers to heart and expresses strong emotions in relation to God's laws.

Here are just a few examples:

10 I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands...

11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you...

32 I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free...

34 Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart...

111 Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart...

It got me to wondering about the connection between my head and my heart. Do I have the emotional connection to God and His Word that this psalmist has? Do I love God's Law? Do I grieve at disobedience - mine and others'? Or have I relegated Scripture to a place in my head that wrestles with doctrine but doesn't penetrate my visceral being?

Many people keep God's Word in their heads or in Sunday school or leave it to the preacher on Sunday to figure out. Many people have fairly consistent communication with God during the course of a day, but don't partake of a regular diet of God's truth as a foundation for their musings. If Psalm 119 has revealed anything to me this time around, it's that there is a crucial tension of the extremes necessary for real life change. I must be both grounded firmly in the unchanging, transformational truths of Scripture AND connected to God on an emotional level to fully experience my relationship with Him. It's not a balance to find in the middle - it's about living life experiencing the absolute outer limits of each.

And this psalm reveals clearly a connection between a heart that knows, seeks, and loves God and His Word and behavior that reflects that relationship. The author doesn't just talk about jumping through the right religious hoops to fit into a social group. He isn't concerned with his reputation in the spiritual community. And his priority is not to memorize Scripture to show off or point out others' flaws. He is single-mindedly and wholeheartedly pursuing a relationship with God. His passion for God is reflected in his love for God's law.

My favorite verse in this epic psalm is verse 97:

Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.

I want more than anything to be in a place in my life where I am exuberant and spontaneous in my desire for the Bible. I want to love God's law because I love its author. I want it to inform my thoughts and actions. I want it to seep from my head to my heart and take deep, deep root. Like the psalmist, I want to say with confidence that God's Word is the joy of my heart, my heritage forever, and the very thing that tethers me with love to my Father in heaven.

"You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees." (119:68) I want to know your statutes because I know enough about you to know that anything that's yours, Lord, is good. And I want it. Bring it on.

• How do you feel about God's Word? Not what do you think, but how do you feel?

• Take a segment of this psalm and meditate on it this week, asking God to reveal wonderful things in His Law as you seek Him and open your heart to Him.

http://andymatthews.net/uploads/18_%20Journey-Steve%20Wiggins.mp3