The Key to Life

Psalm 119:9-11

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

Ever since I was a little girl, my parents have given my brothers and I this verse to hold onto. I still remember my mom making me memorize it when I was a little kid. Over time, it became redundant, and in my eyes, the verse lost it’s meaning. But today, it has taken on a new meaning. I have been in Guatemala for nearly three months, and I only have two and a half weeks left. I have made relationships that will last for all of eternity, I have poured out my heart in ways that I have never experienced, and God has revealed to me walls I have put up that I didn’t even realize were there. The past three months have been the most adventurous, incredible, deep times of my life, but they have also been the absolute hardest. In a team of 20, and on a property of 60 total people, I still find a way to feel lonely. It probably sounds ridiculous, but there are days that I just feel like I have absolutely nothing and absolutely no one to talk to. As of late, I have felt this way multiple times throughout the week. I feel like I am in a pit, or in an ocean, incessantly drifting away from land. Today, God gave me a revelation about this very thing. I forgot that I asked God to make me desperate for him. I forgot that I asked him to make me wholly reliant upon him. It sounded like a nice prayer to pray, and it truly was something my heart desired, but I didn’t realize that being desperate for the Lord, means that I have to be stripped down to absolutely nothing. Sometimes, God has to take you to places where you feel utterly alone, so that you can finally realize you aren’t. He will never leave me, nor forsake me, and that is a promise, and God never breaks his promises. He is faithful and true, and the one thing I have is the Lord, and he is the only thing I need. His words are all sustaining, and life breathing. It was his very breath that brought us into existence, was it not? Psalm 19:7-8 says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” This is what I have in Christ. I have his very words, his very breath, to carry me through every circumstance. Yet often times, I hold onto myself, and I drift away, looking to the left and right, wandering far away from the path of the Lord. But it is a moment, by moment discipline that I must take seriously. God wants all of me, all of the time, and I must be willing to let him in, to let him invade, and take a hold of my heart. Only he can preserve my life, only he can rescue me from the pit, only he can take my life from the ashes and breathe beauty into it. In every circumstance, dark or light, I have all things because I have the Lord, always; and in this nothingness, I have found everything. God let me not forget that I have the key to all joy, and all hope. I have your word, and that is more than enough.

Application: Every day this week, as soon as I wake up, I will pray for my whole heart to seek the Lord. I will pray that I cling to his words, the words of life, through thick and thin, and lean not on my own understanding, for my life is in the hands of the maker of heaven.