9How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
10With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
11I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you. (Psalm 119: 9 – 11)
When I was growing up in the UK in the 1970s, I would often hear people talking about keeping something “for a rainy day”. That is, saving money in case it is needed in the future. The rainy day could be any crisis when funds are short. The idiom is still used today
The psalmist in our reading has been asking how he might keep his way pure. How he might live his life with moral integrity. He wouldn’t just be thinking about sexual purity, as important as that is, but other areas of his life too. He would be mindful of his speech and his choice of words, as well as his thoughts and actions, hoping they are good and righteous in the sight of God.
In this short section of an 8-verse stanza, the psalmist let’s us know what he is putting into practice to try and live a life he can be proud of. At first sight it might seem like a human attempt to be Godly. We all know that we cannot overcome sinful tendencies in our lives without the grace of God. It is because of what Christ has done on the cross, that we have hope of “being transformed into His likeness”.
But the psalmist, even though he knows nothing of Jesus (because this was written before Jesus came to Earth), does know that He needs God’s Word. The Lord and His spoken and written word are his hope. So, he will guard his way (that is, think carefully about his decisions) by measuring it against what God has said.
He has committed himself to seeking God. He will not stray from the ideal that The Lord’s commandments must be his number one source of inspiration.
And he has stored up the Word of God in his heart.
What might this mean?
Obviously, memorisation can help. If we read something often enough, we can start to remember it “off by heart”. Learning portions of scripture was a normal part of my diet in the Sunday school of the little village church I grew up in. Perhaps this is a lost practice in today’s world, but well worth recovering if we are to raise a generation strong in the Word of God.
But perhaps the need is more basic than that. Do we even read the Bible regularly? There is something about absorbing Scripture through the eyes, perhaps even speaking it out, and then letting it marinate in my mind and heart, imagining the story, applying it to my world, letting it move me, challenge me, that can only happen as the Holy Spirit engages with our spirits, breathing life, inspiring hope.
I remember Bible verses that speak to my soul, and I can’t forget stories that shock me or hold me accountable.
And all this quietly stores up in the recesses of my mind and heart, for the day when God will bring it to the surface and use it.