How I Love Your Law

OH HOW I LOVE YOUR LAW! I MEDITATE ON IT ALL DAY LONG. Psalm 119.97.

King David of Israel loved the Word of God very dearly. How do you and I know that? Not because he kept saying, “I love God’s Law!” It is because he meditated on it ‘all day long’ and ‘at night too!” “My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises" (Psa 119: 148).

If you love someone, you would spend a lot of time with that person! I love my wife very much. We got married in 1955 at the age of 27 and 23 respectively. I am a typical Asian who is averse at overtly expressing my love to her in words! The Westerners freely call their wives and children ‘honey, sweetheart or darling’ and sometimes or often it means ‘little or nothing!’ But about my love to my wife, even she cannot deny or complain. It is because every waking moment when I am at home, I want her to be with me! Often her complaint is that she cannot even go to the kitchen to cook because I won’t let her!

Dear friend, how is your love for your God and His Word? Your Bible may be always under your pillow! But that’s not how God wants you to show your love for Him and His Word! God wants you ‘to read His Word ‘day and night and meditate on it to observe it without turning from it!’ (Jos 1.8). That is the way to love God and His Word!

By the way, lovers never throw away their love letters soon after reading them. My wife and I kept on reading our letters many times, especially when we were not together. We started to throw away our ‘love letters’ only after our children learned to read! Many wives sadly complain that their husbands are spending less and less time at home with them and their children. That is the time they suspect that they have some other love in their lives – hobby, work or women!

But do you know that our God is a ‘jealous God?’ (Exo 20.5). He wants us to read or meditate His love letter to us – the Bible - all the time. God has a way of measuring our love to Him. He measures the time we spend with Him and His Word to know how much we love Him! By the way, the Bible says, Enoch and Noah walked with God'. Yet, both were family men who worked all day and did a ‘fair’ bit of preaching too! The other day in one of my devotionals, I wrote “the secret of successful Bible reading is to have ‘a definite time, place and plan’”. I was thrilled when I got an e-mail from my own son to say that he is going to read the Bible at least 20 minutes a day!

I know you love the Lord and His Word! Won’t you prove it to God and yourself by reading the Bible for at least 20 minutes a day? All of us are busy from the time we open our eyes in the wee hours of the morning and until we close them late into the night. Even in King Solomon's days life was so! He said, "In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat-- for he grants sleep to those he loves (Psa 127.2). Believe me, it was so for David, the king of Israel for forty years and Daniel, the Prime minister of the Babylonian empire for seven decades! But as they did, if you make the time for God's Word you will see the miracles that follow - the Lord’s presence and power, success in all your ways and prosperity too! (Jos 1.8).

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, You know that I love You even though I haven’t been reading Your Word every day. Help me to start today, fixing a time, place and plan! Amen.