Patiently Pleading with the LORD over His Word

A Verse

Psalm 25:4-5

Show me your ways, LORD,
teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.

A Comment

Bible study and prayer go hand-in-hand with one another. And when I read Psalm 25:4-5, I cannot help but think about the need to open one’s time in the Word of God with an appeal to God for His divine assistance.

Here in Psalm 25:4-5, the psalmist, who is identified in the opening superscript as David, makes an appeal to the LORD for His help as he meditates on God’s truth. I love how Calvin describes the meaning of this passage as being something to the effect of “Lord, keep thy servant in the firm persuasion of thy promises, and do not suffer him to turn aside to the right hand or to the left.” There is patience here, reflected before the LORD, as we seek to understand and obey His truth.

Spurgeon makes the point that one could almost imagine this psalm as coming from a child’s mouth to his father. To paraphrase, it is as if a child were asking his father, “Show me what I need to do, then teach me how to do it.” As Spurgeon declared, “What weak dependent creatures we are! How constantly we cry to the Strong for strength!” This is the sort of prayerful disposition that we should seek to maintain before the LORD and His truth.

Our aim before the LORD’s truth is not to ask for “our wills to be done,” but rather to submit ourselves to the LORD’s truth and be transformed by it. There is no use in knowing the LORD’s paths if we are unwilling to walk on them. What is the use of being taught God’s Word if we will not obey it once we have learned it? For, as verse 5 of our passage tells us, God is our Savior, and the only one in whom we may hope all day long.

How do you approach the study of God’s Word? Do you approach it with a desire to confirm your ideas? Or do you approach it with a desire to be transformed by it? What if you started praying a Psalm like this one to prepare your heart to encounter God in His Word?

A Prayer

Would you pray with me?

A Blessing

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21)