Nineteenth Strophe—Psalm 119:145-152
145 I call with all my heart; answer me, O Lord, and I will obey your decrees. 146 I call out to you; save me and I will keep your statutes. 147 I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word. 148 My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises. 149 Hear my voice in accordance with your love; preserve my life, O Lord, according to your laws. 150 Those who devise wicked schemes are near, but they are far from your law. 151 Yet you are near, O Lord, and all your commands are true. 152 Long ago I learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever.
This guy sounds like he was in trouble. But he also sounds persistent.
“I call with all my heart,” he wrote (v.145). I call out to You (v.146)…I cry for help (v.147) …hear my voice (149)!” He was so intent on pleading for God’s help that he got out of bed early (v.147) and stayed up late (v.148) just so he could cry for help. He obviously felt threatened. His life was in danger because of “wicked schemes” (v.150). Even though he didn’t get an immediate answer, he persistently went to God for help.
On what basis? He cried out for God’s help on the basis of God’s love and God’s Word (v.149). In other words, the Psalmist prayed so much because he was confident that his prayers would be heard because he knew God loved him because he read it in God’s Word. He is reassured in this even when the wicked are “near” (v.150) because God promised and “established” or proved it “long ago” (v.152) before the trouble arrived. And, not only were his enemies near, but—even more importantly—God is “near” (v.151) also!
The whole strophe challenges us to be persistent, but four words stand out as particularly helpful: “Long ago I learned…” (v.152). Why is this guy persistent? Because “long ago (he) learned” that God loved him. God’s Word said it. God’s Word doesn’t change, so God’s love won’t change either. God had proven this to him a long time ago and repeatedly ever since.
In other words, the psalmist learned persistence.
You and I don’t just have persistence. We learn it over time. Each time we trust God’s Word and pray for God’s intervention, we gain a little more confidence. A little more trust. And we learn persistence. If we trust someone or something that is not reliable, we will not persist in that trust. But by putting our trust in God and His Word repeatedly, we learn that God and His Word are trustworthy—and therefore, we persist. Our persistence is based on confident faith.
There are days when God seems far away. When our problems squeeze us into a corner. We don’t know what to do or say. The example of the psalmist is clear: Open up your Bible and pray! Don’t run away from God. Run to God! Cry out to Him! Be persistent in prayer. Keep at it. Don’t give up. God loves you and says so in His Word. He won’t let you down.
