Psalms 19:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to thee O’Lord my strength and my redeemer.”

 

I may be wrong but looking at this verse grammatically, I do not see this in a cohortative (request) form.  The verse starts simply: “The words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart will be acceptable to thee…”   David is not asking that his words or meditations be acceptable, he is stating a fact, that they are acceptable. The word acceptable in the Hebrew is rasah which is an understanding and acceptance. His words and mediations are understood by God.

 

During the Civil War a Union brigade had captured some Confederate soldiers from the Deep South. The General Chamberlain was very interested in what motivated these soldiers to fight.  They came from an area that had neither plantations nor slavery.  They were simple men from the hills of Alabama who had little dealing with politics. General Chamberlain needed to know what motivated these men to take up arms to fight and die so he could better understand how to deal with them. He ordered his aid to interrogate the men and find out what they knew and to learn what their reason was for fighting.

 

After interrogating the prisoners the aid returned and reported to the General Chamberlain. “Have you found out why these men are fighting?” asked General Chamberlain. “Yes, sir,” said the aid, “They are fighting for their rats, Sir.”  “Come again?” asked the General. “Sir, the men say they are fighting for their rats.”  The General decided to interrogate the prisoners himself and find out just why rats were so important to these men and why they felt the Union Army was a threat to their rats. I mean if it were rats they wanted the North had plenty of their own that they would gladly let them have.  When he approached the men he addressed them by saying: “Men, I am General Chamberlain and I want you to tell me just why you are fighting in this war.” A spokesman for the Confederate prisoners stood up and said in a deep Southern drawl: “Gen’al sur, we all har are fitin fo our riats.” General Chamberlain was a professor of ancient languages in civilian life and so he instinctively listened very closely to the words and instantly understood what the man was saying. He was saying was that they were fighting for their rights.

 

I am very easily frustrated when I am misunderstood. I am particularly frustrated with customer service from the phone company or my bank, particularly with all their sweet, flowery words about how important my call is to them and then they just don’t listen close enough to understand what my concern is. Sometimes I wonder if anyone in this world cares enough to really understand my simple words or the concerns of my heart.  David, as a king, must have really felt this way. He was surrounded by people who acted like they cared but totally misunderstood the things he would say or read into his words things that were not on his heart.

 

These words of David that he wanted to be acceptable to God were not profound words. David uses the Hebrew word amar for words and not davar. In other words, he was not referring just to the carefully chosen words of his heart, but to all that he would say or speak.  He was speaking about his normal every day conversation. These were words that meant a lot to him, but were easily misunderstood by others.

 

Then David asked that the meditations of his heart be acceptable to God. To me when I hear the word meditation I am thinking of deep contemplation of the serious matters in life.   Actually the word used in the Hebrew is hegevon which is more like a musings or pondering.  Let the musings or ponderings of my heart be acceptable to you O Lord.   Even the seemingly irrelevant ponderings of our own heart that most of God’s people could care less about and don’t really understand, are still important to God and He will listen close enough to understand the deep longings of your heart. Yes, God was even aware of his ponderings when that cute little number in that stylish toga served him his afternoon wine.  David wanted to make sure such ponderings as these were acceptable before God.

 

Do you often feel that no one understands you?  Do you often long for just one person to listen to you close enough and really understand your every word and musings or ponderings of your heart? Think about it. God cares, He cares enough that he will listen carefully to every word we say and every musing of our hearts. If it is important to us, it is important to Him.  Like that General Chamberlain, God will understand the difference between rats and rights even if His aids here on earth don’t make the effort to understand and totally take you out of context or read into your words things you never intended.  But there is a down side to this as well, even our words and ponderings that are not acceptable and that we give into will be heard and understood by God.  I mean we can’t fool God and say, “But Lord I was just telling that person in love that their singing annoys the daylights out of me.”  God is only going to respond, “In love? Yeah, sure, I’ll bet.”

 

Remember, also, the word acceptable means not only understand, but acceptance as well.  If God it taking the time to listen closely to our words and the musings or ponderings of our hearts, we should at least make sure that what we are saying and thinking in our hearts is not offensive to God.

 

Tolstoy towards the end of his life after having started a vast moment of pacifism and socialism sat back wondered how people could have taken him so seriously when all he was doing was just pondering some ideas, he was not sure himself if the ideas were viable.  If we really understood just how closely and serious God takes our every thought and pondering, perhaps we will remind ourselves like David reminded himself, that he wants to make sure that every word and pondering of his heart are accepted to God.

 

 

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