Wonderful Are Your Testimonies

When you need to remember — that You're still my Shepherd.

You can feel like His Word should be more accessible than it is. You read intelligently, but you do not always feel illuminated. You watch other people seem to "get it" in a way you do not. Then a verse opens up — quietly, unannounced — and you see something you did not see yesterday, and you remember why this Book has held people for centuries. You do not need to be a scholar. You need the truth that the entrance of His Word gives light to the simple — and you qualify exactly because you do not have it figured out.

This section opens with an unguarded confession: "Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them." That is a soul that is in love. You only call something wonderful out loud when you are not embarrassed to. Then comes the line that should give every reader hope: "The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple." Entrance — not mastery. Light — not credential. Understanding — to the simple. The opening of His Word lights up someone who is not yet wise. Then the longing: "I opened my mouth and panted, for I longed for Your commandments. Look upon me and be merciful to me, as You do to those who love Your name." Panting is hunger that needs to be met. Then the practical request: "Order my steps in Your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me. Deliver me from the oppression of man, so will I keep Your precepts." Order the steps. Break the dominion. Free from oppression. He is asking His Word to govern him. The close ends in tears: "Make Your face shine upon Your servant, and teach me Your statutes. Rivers of water run down my eyes, because they do not keep Your law." Real grief that other people are missing what he has found. The light that broke for him has not yet broken for them, and it makes him cry.

• Right now, open your Bible to any verse — out loud, in the simple version of you, no preparation — and ask: "The entrance of Your words gives light; give it to me now." • Write this down: "Where have I been treating myself as too simple to understand His Word, when His Word actually lights up the simple?" • Repeat this line when reading feels above you: "The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple."

Stop. Breathe. Let the truth that His Word gives light to the simple — including you — settle in the part of you that has been waiting to be impressive enough, then tell Him exactly where you want light to break — out loud if you can.

God, Your testimonies are wonderful, and I want to say that out loud without hedging. The entrance of Your words gives light to the simple — and I am simple enough to qualify. Order my steps in Your word, and break the dominion of what keeps trying to rule me. Make Your face shine upon Your servant, and teach me Your statutes again. Let me grieve when others miss what You have given, instead of growing smug about what I have seen. You're still my Shepherd.

The entrance of His Word gives light — being simple is the qualification, not a barrier.