Psalms 119:59 - The Way To Go

The Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm.

How fun! We get to dig around today in the 59th verse of the 119th Psalm, and we are in the Hett section as we've talked about that that particular letter, these verses, these eight verses on the Hett would be describing the wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, fear of the Lord, and the delight and the fear of the Lord from Isaiah 11 on what this letter of life and marriage and fruitfulness really would look like. And so, since we are in the third verse, this would be the counsel, which when you look at the word counsel in Hebrew, before I actually say the verse, I think it's helpful to know that the word counsel means seeing the right way to go.

So, if you can point somebody in the right direction, then you've given them good counsel. So, the beautiful thing is that lines up just absolutely perfectly with this third verse in the Hett, that if we are again in Christ, this would be the way we should go. So, it says, I thought on my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. And so, you know, that word ways is that word Derek. We've seen so many times in this Psalm, which is, you know, the, like, the road on the pilgrim's progress, you know, the highway to heaven, so to speak. And so, what's the right way?

What is the Derek, which is an absolutely fabulous word. We've talked about it many times. And it's interesting that he thought on, you know, what direction he was going, and then he turned his feet unto thy testimonies. Now, you know, his testimonies we've talked about, or again, where we were an eyewitness to something that God was doing. And so, I've thought about this and how it looks practically when we're married to a husband, you know, we're trying to see what he's doing and getting in on it.

And this is exactly, you may have heard that, I think it may have been Henry Blackby that said it. But anyway, see what God's up to and get in on it is kind of a cool way to do that. But obviously, in so many ways, as we are the bride of Christ, and being a Proverbs 31 wife, you know, we're looking for ways to chime in and help. Well, the more I've thought about this verse, the more I see the correlation between it and 2 Corinthians 1, the first verse, you know, says the God of all comfort comforts us, that we may comfort those with the comfort we were comforted with.

So, you know, that's a testimony. In other words, we saw God comfort us, and so now we have a very unique opportunity to comfort others. And one time I did this, had an opportunity they gave me to be at the Association of Christian Counselors Conference, and I was to do interviews of 100 counselors over the weekend. And so, as you might imagine, I prayed, God, what should I ask these folks in order to get to it?

Because I've got to do a lot of interviews that would be 7, 8, 10 minutes, you know, in a very short period of time, but I want something that would be worthwhile. And what he gave me was that verse. And so the idea was these people had all been a witness to something in their own life, right? And so I just simply asked them as they sat down to do the interview, and all these people were Christian counselors. So I would say, you know, the verse in 2 Corinthians where it says God of all comfort comforts us with the comfort we were comforted with.

I mean, so that we can comfort others with the comfort we were comforted with. And it was like the magic key that unlocked like every, with the exception of just a couple people, everybody I interviewed, had been comforted in the way that they were now comforting. In other words, if they were working on a suicide hotline, guess what? These people had attempted suicide. If they were working on a pregnancy hotline, many of them had pregnancies.

If they were working on the abortion hotline, many of them were working, you know, that had abortions. And on and on and on it went time and again when I sat them down and gave that, there and I would hear a story on how God worked in their lives. And now they were inclining their feet under their own testimony, right? It was absolutely beautiful.

But I have to share this one story that to me was just absolutely spectacular. But one of the times I didn't think it was going to work because there was a guy that sat down in front of me and he wasn't a Christian counselor. He was actually a Christian psychiatrist. And when he sat down, he looked like Sigmund Freud actually to me, had the little goatee and he was wearing a three piece, you know, suit.

Anyway, he had a vest and a suit coat on. You know, this guy had the glass. It was the whole deal. I was like, Oh my gosh. It's like, I don't know, God, you said that's this question.

So I will. So I just said, looked at him and I said, you know, second Corinthians chapter one, it says the God of all comfort comforts us with a comfort that we make comfort others with a comfort we are comforted with. And he said, I said, how does that play out in your life? And he looked at me like most of them did when I asked that question.

You know, I never really thought about that, but Oh my goodness, it really plays out in my life. And I said, how's that? And he said, well, when I got married, I was quite young and I had this, you know, wonderful Christian wife, beautiful woman. And, and within about four or five weeks of us getting married, I went insane. I was like, well, and they put me in a hospital and I was in the psych ward of the hospital and laying in bed. And I was not in my right mind at all.

And I could see this little red light on the wall and I was absolutely convinced that it was Satan and was, you know, spewing all these things. And my new bride was sitting on the bed and she looked at me and she said, you know, I don't know how to get where you are, but I love you so much. I can't be apart from you. Can you tell me what I need to do to be insane? Or in other words, to have my mind go where your mind goes so that I can be with you. And he said, that was what it took for me to fight this insanity and come back to the place that I could see, you know, some relevance to life.

And he said clearly that in his practice, he is always looking for what is worth fighting for in the person's life, that they want to fight their way back to sanity because in a way, aren't we all doing that? It was absolutely a beautiful story. I've never forgotten it.

Like I thought, well, here, this is going to be a different one. And maybe, you know, you're like me in your own life, you know, I've had cancer. I can't tell you the times that I've had a chance to comfort those who've had cancer, or I've struggled with pornography. And I talk about that at the boot camps that we do. And I've had a chance to share with men the way that I was comforted through that. And so what a beautiful thing when we look at this particular verse, when we look at how we can help our bride, right? We thought on our ways and we turn our feet onto, you know, thy testimonies. It's a beautiful thing that we have seen God work in our own lives. And what we have seen in the way that he comfort us will be a comfort to many others. Thank you so much for listening today and for your attention as you, as I'm really honored, honored, honored that you would take time to listen to this, but also would love your feedback, your questions, or to get in any kind of discussion with you. That's why my email is always there in the show notes. So God bless you. Thank you so much for your study of God's word.