When we look for guidance in our lives, wouldn’t it be nice if we could bypass YouTube or Google to go directly to an expert with our problem? That is the essence of David’s advice to his son.

In the previous posts we saw that God’s heart is to bless and not to curse his children. This proclamation was followed by the three-fold warning about the company we keep and how it will influence our thinking.

David’s advice on the influence of the company we keep was the same advice he received at his coronation from Samuel (1 Kings 17:18-20). It was also the same advice Moses gave to the Israelites almost 400 years earlier when they became an established nation in Canaan (Deut. 6:4-10).

David distilled the advice into two simple statements:

But they delight in the law of the Lord,
    meditating on it day and night.

What characterizes a heart that is near God? Intentional and regular infusion of God’s words. If I wanted to know what was on my wife’s heart, how would I do that? The same way – by being near her and intentionally listening to her words. This is a daily process.

There are four things about meditating or listening to God which stand out to me:

1. Why delight?
2. Who are we listening to?
3. How do we listen?
4. When do we listen?

Why Delight?

What is your first reaction when presented with a list of instructions? My reaction tends to be sighing rather than delighting. But for David, the law of the Lord, or the words of God, were more than a list of instructions to comply with. “How sweet your words taste to me; they are sweeter than honey” (Psalm 119:103, NLT). David provides the reason that he delighted in God’s words, “Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path” (v105). God’s instructions were the guide to his journey.

David spoke about his pilgrimage to God’s holy mountain, “Send out your light and your truth; let them guide me” (Psalm 43:3, NLT). David didn’t need to stumble in the dark to find his way because he could follow the light of God’s words. Imagine going on an African safari without a guide, climbing Mount Everest without a Sherpa, or while camping, trying to find the outhouse in the middle of the night without a flashlight. Having a light or a person to guide us takes the pressure off us to find our way in the dark by ourselves. We can relax and enjoy the journey instead of worrying about whether we are on the right path or if we are about to get tripped up by a raccoon. This is the delight that David was talking about. Walk with the guide and his light and enjoy the journey.

Who are we listening to?

In May 2022, Central Ontario experienced a derecho. If you have never heard of a derecho, then you’re in good company. I’ve been practising drainage engineering for over thirty years, and I had never come across this type of storm. We experienced this storm sitting in our car, rocking back and forth in a parking lot, watching hydro poles snap like toothpicks and mature trees uproot as if they were freshly planted saplings. The sky was dark, the rain was nearly horizontal, and suddenly after twenty minutes it was gone.

The storm was described by meteorologists as an historic derecho and one of the most impactful thunderstorms in Canadian history, with winds up to 190 km/h causing widespread and extensive damage including power outages for over 1.1 million customers. And we were one of those customers without power for a week. Fortunately for us, the home builder had the foresight to install a generator when he built the house.

After several days of providing power, the generator stopped working. It would restart for a few seconds and then shut down. I checked that there was plenty of fuel. After several attempts at restarting the generator, I realised that I needed expert advice. I messaged the previous owner who suggested checking the oil level in the generator motor. It’s not the first thing I would have thought of checking, but I listened, and he was spot on. I topped up the oil, restarted the generator, and we had power again.

Going to the home designer and builder brought the solution that would never have occurred to me. I was delighted with the outcome! While it sounds logical to go to the source, we often bypass the source and attempt to diagnose the situation on our own.

Levi Lusko commented on the difference between doing it yourself (DIY) and going to the source for guidance,

“God’s rules are there for a reason – not to kill your joy but to enhance it. He has so much more in store for you than you could ever know. But to get there, you must relinquish your desire to navigate on your own, lest you lose your way. When you put your trust in the instrument God has given you, you set yourself up to soar.” ¹

God’s Instrument

What instrument has God provided? David’s instruction was to meditate on the “Law of the Lord.” What was he referring to? In Hebrew, the word used for the “Law of the Lord” is Torah which means to instruct, to guide, or to teach. ² The Alexandrian Jews who translated the Septuagint (the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) used the Greek word nomos, meaning norm, standard, doctrine, and later “law”. Greek and Latin Bibles then began the custom of calling the Pentateuch (five books of Moses) “The Law.” ³ Using the description, “The Law” for the Pentateuch can be misleading since some books have instructions while other books provide history.

What is the purpose of the Torah? The Law or Torah is primarily instruction from God to help us live in harmony with God’s will. Tim Mackie summarized the book of Leviticus in the Bible Project video in this way: “Despite Israel’s failure, God provided a way for their sins to be covered, so that God can live with sinful people in peace.” ⁴ That’s the purpose of God’s instructions and teaching. To provide people with the guidance that enables them to have relationship with a holy God. This was why David delighted in God’s instructions. They were the instrument that enabled him to have a close relationship with his creator.

Laser Focus

How do God’s instructions and guidance accomplish this? In David’s day they had access to the first five books of the Bible. Today we have sixty-six books of guidance and instruction available to us. Paul described the influence of God’s words on our lives: “For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires” (Hebrews 12:2, NLT).

In this verse, Paul attributed three things to God’s words – they are alive, they are powerful, and they penetrate our heart. When we hear them, they come alive in our hearts and have power to change us to become more like him. God’s words are able, like a sharp sword, to cut away the unnecessary parts to get to the source of the matter. Eugene Peterson described it this way: “God’s word has this aimed, intentional, piercing nature. When we are spoken to this way, piercing and penetratingly, we are not the same. These words get inside us and work their meaning in us. God’s very words, creating and saving words every one, hit us where we live.” ⁵

Because the words come from our creator, they are truth and reality, and they hit the target of the human condition.

“Like a surgeon’s scalpel, the Holy Spirit cuts away all the veneer, leaving only the true and genuine behind.” ⁶

The Wizard of Schenetady

There is a story about Charles Steinmetz, a mathematics and engineering genius, known as the Wizard of Schenectady. He was a contemporary of Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. Steinmetz, an employee of General Electric, was called upon to solve a problem at Henry Ford’s auto plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Ford’s own electrical engineers were unable to solve a problem they were having with a large generator, so they enlisted Steinmetz’s help. Steinmetz listened to the generator, made some notes, scribbled some calculations, then after a couple of days climbed a ladder along side the generator and made a chalk mark on its side. He instructed Ford’s engineers to remove the plate at the chalk mark and replace sixteen coils. The generator performed to perfection when the recommended work was completed.

Henry Ford was delighted until he got a $10,000 invoice from General Electric. Ford was happy with the result but unhappy with the bill. He requested an itemized list. Steinmetz, responded personally to Ford’s request with the following: Making chalk mark on generator $1. Knowing where to make mark $9,999. Ford paid the bill.⁷

Ford brought in an expert to deal with a problem his own staff were unable to fix, and he paid handsomely for the solution.

God created us, knows how we function, and he knows our limitations. God’s words instruct us and show us what works and what doesn’t work. We don’t like prohibitions; we don’t like being told what we can and cannot do. But God’s guidance protects us from harm because he knows how we were meant to really live. God’s words are life giving.

From home generators to industrial generators to our lives, a DIY solution is not the answer. We need guidance from the creator and expert, and he’s offering it to us at no cost.

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Up Next

How do we handle this instrument, God’s words, in our life’s journey? The second part of verse 2 points us to the simple solution – meditate on it, regularly.

Notes

1. Levi Lusko, Swipe Right (Nashville: W Publishing, 2017) 57.
2. John R. Kohlenberger III, NIV Exhaustive Concordance Dictionary, Third Edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015).
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah#:~:text=The%20word%20%22Torah%22%20in%20Hebrew,law%22%20gives%20a%20wrong%20impression
4. Bible Project Video, Leviticus, https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/torah-leviticus/
5. Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms as Tools of Prayer (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989) 25.
6. Jerry Vines, Vines Expository Bible Notes (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2020).
7. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/charles-proteus-steinmetz-the-wizard-of-schenectady-51912022/