Psalm 119 Week 1 with Kristie Anyabwile
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Hello and welcome to the She Reads Truth podcast, where we open our Bibles and talk about the beauty, goodness, and truth we find there. I'm your host, Rachel Myers. And I'm your other host, Amanda Bible-Williams. And this is our first of two episodes in our Psalm 119 series, We Delight in Your Word. We are excited about this plan, and we're super excited about our guest today. Her name is Christy Añabuile-Santana.

She is the editor of a book called His Testimonies, My Heritage, Women of Color on the Word of God. And she is a Bible teacher, a discipler of women. She's a pastor's wife and a mom. And we just love this conversation with her. It's long. You're going to want to stay till the end because she tells some amazing stories and gives some wonderful tips about scripture memorization. So stick around. Let's go.

This is our first time meeting you face to face. And we're not in person, but we are face to face. But even though I don't know a lot about you, Christy, I know that you love the word. Because you love the word in such a way that I don't have to know much about you. Like, it's very obvious.

from just kind of following you and your husband online. He's a pastor. You're a Bible teacher and writer and work with the Charles Simeon Trust. And so I could just tell really quickly when someone kind of introduced me to you online that you are a kindred spirit because anyone who can talk about God's word as often...

And with such delight as you do, I'm like, oh, we're going to be buddies. I really like this lady. Which made us really excited to have you for the Psalm 119 reading plan because we only get two episodes for this reading plan. And so it was like, how do we narrow it down? Because there's so many people that we would love to talk to about this one chapter of scripture. It's been such a fun reading plan to plan for.

on a number of levels, the book and all of those things, the online experience, but the podcast especially, just to kind of go like, who do we bring in that really wants to specifically talk about what it means to delight in God's word? And you have a book, the His Testimony is My Heritage, and that is...

Am I correct that, I know Amanda, you've read it. I haven't read it yet. But this is like specifically like this like digs into Psalm 119, right? Yeah, I mean, I read it as its responses to Psalm 119, specifically responses written by women of color, which is such a beautiful, it's just such a beautiful compilation of

real women from all different backgrounds looking at this, like you said, one chapter of the Bible, and they kind of take it stanza by stanza and just write about real life experience. But really, what I took away from this book is that it just really holds God's Word center stage.

which makes my heart happy and challenges me at the same time. And you have some of our friends as contributors. You've got Jackie Hill Perry, Trillia Newbell. We love those girls. And the other girls I would love to get to know because I don't recognize their names, but I would love to. Well, you should definitely get to know them. The women who have contributed to the book, all of them are women that I really wanted to introduce others to because they're so faithful with God's word.

They love God's word. They love to teach God's word. They're capable with God's word. They're growing in God's word. So I would love for you to meet them. And it encourages me too, that you see that that's what we're holding up in this book is the word of God. And that I think another thing for me is,

showing that all of God's word is for all of God's people. And we want to reflect that in the pages of the book. So I call it an expositional devotional. So it's devotional in nature, but it goes verse by verse, pretty expositionally, line by line, verse by verse through Psalm 119, but it has a devotional quality as well. So I wanted to try to have a balance between

We'll be sure to link that at the SheReadsTruth.com slash podcast, because I want people to get a hold of this and read this. And it feels like such a good companion as they're going through. Today is, as this episode releases, this is day one of the She Reads Truth Psalm 119 study. It's 14 days, and it feels like a really good thing, either as a companion to that or as a like, okay, after those two weeks, now dig in even deeper with these stories.

women. But let's talk for a minute about Psalm 119. Amanda, talk to us about why we chose to do a whole study on one chapter of the Bible.

Yeah, well, even as you were saying this, Rachel, that this would be a good companion piece, the thing that I think is so intriguing about Psalm 119, one of the things, there are many things, but one is that, you know, at first read, it's very clearly about God's word, about God's instruction, you know, that uses a lot of different words for God's instruction, His law, His statutes. And so at first read, you're like, oh, okay, I get it. Like, it's kind of all about that.

But when you start digging in, you realize how rich it is and how, whereas I might be tempted to give it a, well, you wouldn't give it a real quick read because it's very long, but give it a read and think, yeah, I get this. I can sum it up in a line or two. But then when you really start digging and sitting in it and meditating on these words, I think there's so much there that you really could spend an

an unlimited amount of time on. So, you know, the fact that you, Christy, have edited a book of expositional devotionals. Yes. I love it. It's not a small book. I mean, it's a good, like hefty book that is bigger than a typical like trade book for sure. I like that. There's some good in there. And all inspired from this one chapter of the Bible. Yeah.

it's so interesting to me, inspired in a different way than is the actual chapter of the Bible. Than is the actual chapter. Yes. But that, you know, that draws from that chapter. And so we wanted to really do a deep dive. But another reason that we wanted to focus on this one chapter is, you know, we are women in the Word of God every day. That's what we've always done here at She Reads Truth. And so to have a reading plan that really focuses on

God's word and what it means to delight in God's word and delight in his law and in his instruction feels very...

She reads truth. It feels like we didn't really set out for it to be a foundational plan for our community. But now on the other side of it, having, you know, spent time in it and creating it. And now that the community is starting to dive in today, it really does feel like that. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like one that we're going to keep on the shelves. Right. And keep revisiting with the community, even just...

I mean, like you were saying, like that delighting in the law, delighting in the statues, there are elements of delight and there are elements of lamentation. There are elements of like sorrow. Like there's so many. Anyway, it's 176 verses about the length of 22 normal psalms.

So it's, I mean, it's good that we're taking two weeks to go through this and like truly enjoy it. I mean, is there anything else that we can tell the listeners just to kind of set them up for success this week and next, like with the study? Yeah.

Well, there is the fact of the structure of the psalm is really unique. And actually, Christy, I'd love to hear you. Oh, yeah. You spent so much time and I mean, a considerable amount of time and words in this chapter of the Bible. Tell us about the structure because it's an acrostic. What makes it? Just let her tell. Just let her explain. You're right. That's so true. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to us about what makes it so unique.

Yeah, it's unique in a lot of ways. One, it is the longest chapter in the Bible. It's 176 verses. It is an acrostic meaning, and you guys do a great job in your week one of helping readers to understand the acrostic structure of the Psalms. So

You all who are listening out there, please read and pay attention to that section because it's very helpful in understanding the psalm. Acrostic just means that Psalm 119 is set up in 22 stanzas. And each stanza corresponds to one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Okay, so stanza one is the Hebrew letter T.

equivalent to A. It's called Aleph, and if you look at it in your Bibles. And we've got the Hebrew alphabet laid out in pages 14 to 15 of the study book, so y'all can actually see what those letters look like. Good luck pronouncing all of them correctly. Yeah, exactly. So what that means is, so for stanza one, it's Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Every line in that particular stanza starts with

that letter of the Hebrew alphabet. We don't have the benefit of seeing that when we read it, because of course we're reading it in English, but that's the way it's set up. Why is that important? That's important because it helps us to know that the author of Psalm 119 wanted this book to be memorable and memorizable, that the Psalms you have to remember are songs,

The Psalms, P-S-A-L-M-S, are songs, S-O-N-G-S, and they are meant to be sung. They are meant to be prayed. They are meant to be recited and memorized. So if we were reading this in the Hebrew language, it would have been verbal and audible cues to help us to move from one stanza to the next.

next. So that's one thing to keep in mind that it really was intended to be memorized and to be sung and to be recited and repeated. Speaking of repeated, one of the things that you all also do well in setting up this study is you include in the study, the different, the various word words is what I call them. The word words that are included in Psalm 119. So Psalm 119 has about eight different

words that are used to refer to the word of God. And you outlined them clearly on page 13 in the guide. Instruction or precept or statute or command or judgment or word or decree. You're going to see those repeated over and over again throughout Psalm 119. As a matter of fact, almost every verse that

Just about every verse makes some reference to the word of God. So if you look at Psalm 119, I mean, just look at the first stanza, verses 1 to 8.

And you'll see in the very first verse, happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk according to the Lord's what? Instruction. Verse two, happy are those who keep his decrees. Verse three, they walk in his ways. You have commanded your precepts. If only my ways were committed to keeping your statutes. So you can go verse by verse, pick one, close your eyes and pick a verse. You will land on a word.

That has something to do with the word of God, the instructions of the Lord. And then one other thing with that, why is that important? Why the repetition of word and words and statutes and commands and decrees?

We know that the word of God is not just letters on the page, but the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And that word is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So you can be encouraged as you're reading this. I would encourage you as you're reading, when you come across these word words to meditate on, maybe you can write that on your reflection page for the day or for the week, but really meditate on how does this instance change?

of word or decree or statute? How does it reflect or draw me to Christ, his person, his work, his character, what he's done for us? And I think that would be a great, just a sweet meditation as you're going through this particular song. There's more I can say, but I'll just stop right there. I don't want you to stop. I want you to introduce every study book we ever create. I

I want you to be the one to introduce it to the community because these are things that I know because we've prepared here, but you are a great teacher. Yeah, and we are just furiously nodding. Amanda's throwing her praise hands in the air. I know, she's got praise hands. When you get to John 1-1, I'm like, yes. All right, let's go. It is so beautiful. It's one of the things I love about this chapter in this study, in this study book, is that it is just...

beautiful to just revel in the gift of God's word. And the fact that it is, you know, repeatable and those word words are used over and over and it was meant to be sung. Like it just feels like,

rich and like something that I want to hang on to and sit in a while, you know, and I hope that that's what we're going to do over the next two weeks. But let's do that some today. You mentioned so that even that first stanza, Christy, you mentioned like verses one through eight, right?

And like it does, like it hits on almost all of those first eight, the main word words, those eight words. But I would say like, you know, there are different types of psalms, like genres of psalms, like those sub genres, like there's the lament and the petition. And then I also mentioned there was confidence and innocence, you know, also like as a part of this, you can get all four of those in this first stanza as well, which, so I'll

read,

So here's the lament begins. So there's some petition right there, too. I love something I really liked about this in verse 7 of that.

It says, I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous judgments. And I liked there that worship and obedience require knowledge. Like the actual, I need to pursue, I want to learn. It matters to me not just to worship the idea of you, but to grow in my knowledge and understanding of you. That's good.

Being able to obey you, being able to really worship all of who you are, Lord, is learning, is committing to learning who you are. Thank you for your word because you don't, yes, you're like, God is a mystery, but also he has made himself known in his word. Yes. Amen. Amen. Yeah, no, that's really good. And I think another kind of aspect of moving through this psalm and really meditating on the truth here is,

there's these constant petitions that you hear over and over again. So the psalmist is constantly saying, I seek you with my whole heart. I have sought you with my whole heart. I have treasured your word in my heart. So there's this seeking, there's this treasuring, there's understanding, and then there's action. There's concrete action. Okay, Lord, I want to know you. I want to seek you. I want to grasp you.

some idea of who you are. I want to understand some aspect of who you are. I want to treasure that in my heart, that aspect of who you are, that characteristic of you. And then I want to act on it. I want to walk in a way that is worthy of

of the Lord. I want to turn away from evil. I want to have a heart of forgiveness. I want to grow in hoping in your word. I don't want to be ashamed. I want to walk in confidence, as you say. So there is, even in the repetitiveness of the psalm, there's definitely a movement as well, that the psalmist stanza by stanza is moving our hearts to seek and understand and to respond to

to God's word. So I love that. Yeah. These first two stanzas, I was also struck by the action verbs and the I will statements like I will, I will, I will. And it's almost like

a just I'm going to declare that I'm going to do these things. And then the next breath, I'm also going to ask you to help me do these things. And then that's kind of switched a little bit later, which we'll look at. But all of these action verbs of walk, seek, praise, learn, keep, treasure, proclaim, rejoice, meditate, think about, delight. Like it's even just sitting in these two stanzas,

we can learn so much about what it means to not only read and study and understand the word, but about our relationship with the word Jesus Christ, what it means to follow him and walk with him. No, that's good. I think another thing you're talking about these first couple of stanzas. And I know in this week one, um,

You ladies are going to cover a lot in one week. Yeah. I mean, two weeks is fast. Two weeks goes by so fast. Yep. That's a lot. But I think it would be great to just take a moment, not only to read, say, the first stanza, but to read it in conjunction with the last stanza, too. Oh, that's good. And just to reflect on how the psalm moves from beginning to end and what the psalmist says.

pleas and posture is in the end as opposed to the beginning. And so one of the things that I think is interesting is in that very last stanza, the psalmist says, let my cry reach you, Lord, give me understanding according to your word. Let my plea reach you, rescue me according to your promise. My lips will

Pour out praise for you teach me your statutes. My tongue sings about your promise for all your commandments are righteous. May your hand be ready to help me for I have chosen your precepts. I long for your salvation, Lord, and your instruction is my delight. Let me live and I will praise you. May your judgments help me. I wander like a lost sheep.

Seek your servant, for I do not forget your commands. This is the word of the Lord. Yes. Amen. Beautiful. So just looking at the end and the beginning and seeing those bookends of this psalmist's

having such confidence in the Lord and knowing at the very end who he is as an embodied, flawed, sinful human being, and knowing that even as he's making these petitions to ask to seek the Lord, he knows that the Lord must first seek him. Seek your servant, for I do not forget your command. So he needs the enabling work of the Spirit, the initiating act of the Spirit in order for him to make

Yeah, absolutely.

Yes.

don't let me wander from your commands. In the end, Lord, everything I do is apart from you is nothing. Nothing. That's right. That's good. So good. Yeah. Well, when we move on to day two, the reading that we'll do in day two, which is Psalm 119, 17 through 32, he does a lot of that saying, you know, where the psalmist is kind of renewing his commitment to God's law, but he's also at the same time

like actively relying on God and asking God to act. So it's exactly that it's, and there are so many verses that do this. For example, let's see, we'll just start in 17. Deal generously with your servant so that I might live. Then I will keep your word. Open my eyes so that I may contemplate wondrous things from your instruction. And then I just love 19. It doesn't follow that, but I'm a resident alien on earth. I mean, who feels that right

now. All of us feeling that right now. Yeah. And then moving on to verse 22, take insult and contempt away from me for I've kept your decrees. Verse 25, my life is down in the dust. Give me life through your word. Just continue to say, teach me your statutes. Help me understand. Strengthen me through your word. Give me your instruction. So just constantly like asking, asking, asking while saying,

I'm seeking and I will do this, but I need you. I mean, it is constant. And I think it's a really powerful lesson about prayer for me personally was to read these and recognize that.

okay, I have a weightiness and responsibility to obey and to follow in the ways of the Lord. Like the spiritual disciplines. Yes. And at the same time, I completely rely on the Lord's mercy. That's right. Like it's both things. One does not negate the other. And it's hard for me, and I feel like hard for most of us, to hold the tension where two things that you think would cancel one another out are both

Yeah. And so this is just a real lesson, I think, in that both and of the Christian walk. Yeah.

Yeah, no, that's good. That's good. That just reminds me of something else in terms of, I would say the structure of the song of Psalm 119. And I would say the structure of any song that you read. And that is in Hebrew poetry, you know, in a lot of our poetry, the lines rhyme, right? So lines go together because they rhyme or because they build on

one another. There's a rhythm to it. In Hebrew poetry, the way lines often work together is they're in parallel. So you'll have one verse or one line of one verse that, you know, makes a statement. Let's start in verse 17, deal generously with your servant so that I might live. And then the next line will do several different things. It might repeat the first line,

It might draw a contrast to the first line or it might extend the thought of the first line. So in this particular one, we see deal generously with your servant so that I might live. And then it says, then I will keep your word. So there's an extension we see there. Those lines go together because the second line is extending the thought of the first line. So I think that's something else to keep in mind.

That when you move through the stanzas in the poem to look for those connections between the parallel lines, look at the lines that go together and then meditate on how do those lines go together? Are they repeating something that's important that I need to remember? Are they drawing a contrast that I need to keep in mind? Is there a but or something like that? Or is there an and?

You know, what is it that's connecting those lines together? And then put those together to see how the psalm or the stanza itself is moving you. So I love what you were saying as you were reading that section when you were talking about the tensions that are brought into play as you read. And I think a psalm, think about music and what music does and how we feel when we listen to music. Those things.

tensions that are brought out, we need to lean into those. We need to feel the sorrow that the psalmist is feeling. We need to feel that kind of unsettledness that the psalmist is feeling. We need to feel that joy and the delight and the refreshment as the psalmist is experiencing it and is recording it for us.

We are meant to enter into the emotion that's given to us in the song. So I would say not to shy away from that, but to really lean into that and then to meditate on the goodness and the joy and the blessings that God gives us as we kind of enter emotionally into the song as we read it.

At She Reads Truth, we want to equip you to be in God's Word every day. In our newest study on the book of Ephesians, we will open our Bibles and explore what it means to have unity and victory in Jesus. As believers, we've been adopted into God's family and raised to new life with Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Spirit and by the blood of the cross, we are not only unified with Christ, but we are also called to be united with one another.

We invite you to join us as we spend three weeks diving into this letter to the Ephesians, where Paul invites believers to live worthy of the calling we have received. We hope you'll join us in the book of Ephesians beginning on August 10th. As a special gift to our podcast listeners, we're giving you 20% off when you use the code Ephesians20. Will you join us? I mean, that's what I love about the Psalms in general and specifically here that we have

It's this like big permission slip to approach the Lord with our whole emotional spectrum and go like, well, I am a whole human that you've created me to be. And not to just like sit in that truth, but to approach the Lord with that.

To approach the Lord with our sorrow, with our joy, with the things where we go like, oh, I have messed up. Whatever that emotion is, whatever that thing about us is, but to approach the Lord with those things, the Psalms is the permission slip for that. And I think Psalm 119 is such a great example of doing that. Yeah. And look at verse 28. I am weary from grief. Strengthen me through your word. Like there are just lines like that that just almost bowl me over because...

Sometimes I don't know that something is true about my current self until I read it in the Word. And I'm like, oh, man, I really am weary. I really do feel like an alien on this earth. You know, it gives us a vocabulary for our humanity.

condition, our spiritual condition. It's just super powerful. Something I like about this conversation is that we're kind of, we're going like, hey, the Hebrew, the original text here, it matters. It's important to pay attention to all of the intention that went into this psalm. It didn't just like fall, like it wasn't just like, oh,

I'm going to write something. Like there's so much richness here. And so to start with the Hebrew and then, you know, we're kind of sitting here going like, well, let's look at our English translation of that. And so it's important to have a good translation. But then I like to sometimes layer in that third layer of a paraphrase just to like, you know, like to get that like on the street language. And there is in verse 33 of the message, I really like that paraphrase.

It says, God, teach me lessons for living so I can stay the course. Give me insight so I can do what you tell me. My whole life, one long, obedient response. Guide me down the road of your commandments. I love traveling this freeway.

That's good.

I love that. And I love the layers that you're adding on. But I would add another layer that even after you've kind of looked at your Hebrew, your English, your paraphrase, you paraphrase. Yeah, that's right. Individual paraphrase what you are reading and put your life experience, your circumstances, what you're going through. One of the

things that I loved about the, his testimonies book is that because it's such a diverse group of women who contributed to it, we get to see a fuller picture of how God is speaking to individual diverse set of circumstances through his word. And, you know, sometimes people just feel lost in the word and they don't see how their lives connect.

to the word of the Lord. And so I would say add that next layer of now you paraphrase it, you write it in your own words, you write it in your own words, as you are living the Christian life. That's so good. As you're going through whatever circumstances you're going through. And that's just going to add richness. I love that. Yeah.

And then the exercise that we added in the book at the end of each day, you know, we've got, you know, our stanza or two or three of Psalm 119, and then a little bit of, you know, correlating scripture. I think day one, we have Psalm 19 to just kind of like layer in there. But at the end of every day on the app and the site and in the book, there is a section of scripture that...

seemingly has nothing to do with that day's reading. Like I think day one is the Ten Commandments. And the challenge or the exercise for that day is to come out of reading Psalm 119 and reading the psalmist talk about how he delights in God's word and then going, okay, here's a chunk of scripture, seemingly unrelated, read that. And what does it look like this time when you read this to delight in God's word? And in day one's case, it's Exodus, it's

the

So that's God's law. So how do we delight in God's law? But we, you know, we go through, there's James, there's Joshua. Yeah. Isaiah. I mean, we go all over the place over the next couple of weeks. But it's such a, like, and then there's the other layer of just going like, okay, now, now not only am I giving my own paraphrase to this as an exercise and really engaging with God's word, but I'm also, now I'm going to exercise it. I'm going to exercise what it looks like to delight in God's word in other areas of the Bible. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Something I love about studying scripture is I love these conversations. I get teary almost every time, like thinking of what a joy and a privilege it is to just talk with other people who delight in God's word about delighting in God's word. It's just such a beautiful exercise.

But also like these exercises of doing your paraphrase, you know, and writing down what the Lord is teaching us and what scripture is teaching us is that I learned so much from your paraphrase, Christy, and from your paraphrase, Rachel, and then reading the stories from these women and the book that you compiled, Christy, it's so beautiful. And, you know, it's not human words are not God's words. It's different, but the Holy Spirit is,

It's the same Holy Spirit who lives in me and lives in you and lives in these women. And so to learn from one another and to hear from women who I may not have much in common with on paper, but really I have this huge, the

the biggest thing in my life in common with. Right. And so it's one of the things I really love about reading that and about these conversations is that, you know, we talk about our Olympic podium that like scripture, you know, God and his word are always at the top. And when we have these conversations, we learn from one another. And honestly, when we write and delight in God's word and write it down on paper, and then we return to our own words later, um,

I mean, God has ministered to me through something that he's taught me years ago, just because life moves at such a pace that we learn something and then we forget it the next time we turn around. And so if I go back and revisit where God met me in a specific season,

It almost always ministers to me, even in my current season. And so there's just so much value in really digging in. Yeah, the sacred thing, the living and active thing is the Word of God. But then when we get to observe each other in a diverse setting, and I love that you've provided this.

I'm holding up your book right now, but when we get to observe each other interacting with the sacred living and active word, that layer of ministry, that testimony of the saints is, I think I'm going to use the word privilege, like it's such a joy and privilege to have that connectivity. Right. That's right. And we all have our humanity in common. I mean, you know, we like to wear different labels, have different roles, our lives all look different, but we're

The human emotion that I read from possibly David, we're not really sure in this song, we can all have a conversation about, you know, that all of us as humans and as children of God can have a conversation about.

Now, that's good. I think one thing that was coming to mind as you were talking is just I imagine that there are women who are listening to this podcast right now who are thinking, well, I have no delight. This season is hard. I hate it. I'm done with it.

All the things, whether it's pandemic, racial tension, isolation, whatever it is, zero delight. All of us have done that. Some of us are in that place. So to say delight in the word, just how am I supposed to do that? And I think one thing, at least for me, that causes delight, one is just reading the word of life and knowing that,

This is God speaking to me. Well, that's delight in and of itself. However, I think when you're in a hard place, sometimes the delight comes from knowing that the Lord knows your pain, that he enters into your hardship, your sorrow, your suffering with you. And so there is a delight that comes with

Being in God's word and knowing that he cares. And, you know, we're talking about this emotional aspect of, you know, what the psalmist is trying to express emotionally. And I was saying, lean into that.

And when I say that, I mean, even when you're in a hard place, lean into the emotion that comes with that, but don't stay there. And other places in the Psalms and elsewhere in scripture, you know, where, you know, the Psalm says, oh, why is my, you know, why is my soul downcast? You know, yet I hope in God, you know, and so, so there is a sense in which.

God can handle your emotions. You are not too drama-cidal for him. So whatever it is that you're struggling with or faced with or just dealing with emotionally, you don't have to feel like you need to hide that from God.

He knows he's there with you and you can delight in the fact that he's there and he cares and he will bring you out in his way and in his time. And often the way that he brings us out is through that continual feeding and nurturing and watering through the word. Yeah. Well, and, you know, these seasons of life that we're talking about, just seasons of difficulty and grief and,

Psalm 119 also speaks of God's word as our refuge. You know, God's word is our lamp. It's our hiding place. It is a comfort. And it's really beautiful to not only know that that is true and ought to be true for me, but to hear the testimonies of other women as

saying how God's word is all of those things for them. I mean, you have an essay in your own book that is about raising your sons, raising black boys with hope. Is that what it is? That's right. Yeah. Well, I saw it just a little bit ago, so it's not relatively fine short term. Right. But that, you know, that's a really daunting reality of being afraid for your children. Yeah.

And, you know, I can't relate to exactly that, but I can relate to being afraid for my children in other ways, you know. But to acknowledge that fear, to look right at it, but then to also turn to God's Word. And it's exactly what you just said. How do I delight in this in light of the reality of this fear or this circumstance in my real life? Because I think sometimes...

We miscategorize scripture and the truth of scripture as not our real life. Yeah.

And, you know, it's not a fairy tale. We've talked about that when we were reading stories of women and men in the New Testament. These are not fairy tales. These are accounts and these are true stories. And God's word is true. Even the poetry in God's word is truth and truth. So, yeah, just to know that, like, I can look at this and it speaks to my reality and it is actual, real hope and truth. That's right.

in our current season, whatever it is. And so it's just really powerful. I want us to keep proclaiming that because when you proclaim that, Christy, and when you proclaim it, Rachel, like I, I learned from that. Yes. Yeah. One verse that came to mind as you were speaking on that, so absolutely true in verses 49 and 50 of Psalm 119, it says, remember your word to your servant

You have given me hope through it. This is my comfort in my affliction. Your promise has given me life.

Just write that down and put it somewhere. Does that bring tears to your eyes and also joy to your heart? I just don't even know. It is in my affliction. My comfort is that the promises of God still give me life. I can hold on to them. And over and over, the psalmist reminds us of where our hope lies. You can look

Right across the page in verse 74, those who fear you will see me and rejoice. Why? For I put my hope in your word. So our hoping in God's word is a testimony. It's a testimony to others, just like you were just saying, like, you know, as I proclaim truth and you proclaim truth and we hear the words of life coming from one another's lips and experiences that, yes, it gives us cause for rejoicing and hope.

It alleviates our fears and helps us to trust in God even more, to continue to put our hope in Him. I even look at verse, well, like that whole stanza, the 57 through 72. But verse 61 says, Though the ropes of the wicked were wrapped around me,

I did not forget your instruction. I rise at midnight to thank you for your righteous judgments. And then the message translation of that one says, I get up in the middle of the night to thank you. Your decisions are so right, so true. I can't wait till morning. Amen. That's good. That makes me teary. Well, and I was over in the next stanza.

We're talking about... We're just having a Psalm 119 party. I love a Psalm 119 party. It's a good kind of party. I want my next birthday to be a Psalm 119 party. All right. It's next month. We're coming. Invite me, please. All right. Yes. Oh, yes. You'll be on the guest list. But verse 71, it was good for me to be afflicted so that I could learn your statutes. I put a giant exclamation point next to that.

Because, you know, in the midst of there, there's comfort in, you know, you back up a few verses, 68, you are good and you do what is good. Teach me your statutes. But then to like, it's almost like upping the ante to say, it was good for me to be afflicted so that I could learn your statutes. And this is one of those things that we've talked about. Wait, read 50.

72 also. Oh, well, here, let's just keep going. It says instruction from your lips. So you're saying it was good for me to be afflicted so that I could learn your statutes. Instruction from your lips is better for me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. Wow. Yeah. Easy to say, but like, do I believe that? And it's one of those things in the Christian life that there is something about...

Jesus and God and God's mercy and the gospel that means that he brings even good through our suffering and that even our affliction can be a blessing because of who God is. And so it doesn't mean that.

it's good that you're suffering necessarily. You know, it doesn't mean that like, Oh, these, we were just talking about injustice. It doesn't mean that injustice is good. No, God is justice. God is just. And so, but, but,

How is it worded? The highest goal of all is to know Christ. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

And what's interesting to me, we can't go through all the word words, but in this particular one about learning, so I can learn your statutes. And you think about what a statute is. It comes from a word that means hat or engraving. So I want to learn your inscripturated engraved statutes.

Word that is etched and it's etched in eternity. You're not going away thing. Yeah. Yeah. You're not going away. Your word's not going away. I need to learn your statutes, that word that is everlasting, that is eternal.

Etched in the heavens. And another verse, one of my favorite, in verse 89, it says, Lord, your word is forever. It is firmly fixed in heaven. And so that idea of statute gives you that image or that picture of God's word being engraved. And that's what we want, right? Yeah. And if affliction causes God's word to be etched even further into our hearts, then praise be to God for that, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that's a statement of faith. Like, you have to believe that. You do. You do. And we're not certain of who wrote Psalm 119, but many commentators believe it was David. David, at least, yeah, well, it's debatable, but let's just say it was David. We like to sit around and have the, who do you think wrote Hebrews party? Yeah, I know.

Oh, right, right, right, right. I do think there's a high level of possibility that it was David. But then when you read, if you read that verse in the context of David's life, right, then it does give you kind of this sense of,

you know, Hey, this brother went through some things from his own family, you know, and yet he could say, or someone like him could say that it was good for me to have this kind of affliction so that I could learn your statutes. Yeah. Well, and you get to the stanza that starts with verse 81, uh,

there's so much lament and, you know, just voicing like his affliction, persecution. And I mean, even to the point where verse 87 says they almost ended my life on earth. I love that he's qualified on earth because he understands that there's, there's more, but I did not abandon your precepts. Give me life in accordance with your faithful love and I will obey the decree you have spoken. Um,

But yeah, I mean, and there's even back up to 86, that one ends with just a help me. I can relate to that. I pray those prayers a lot. Yes, exactly. Help me prayers are a, that's a prayer. It is a prayer. I didn't even know you were quoting scripture. It absolutely is. Absolutely. Speaking of quoting scripture, I don't want to let Christy get away without asking Christy

You love scripture memory. Is that something you're passionate about? I do. I love scripture memory. Yeah. I just want to hear you talk about it for a minute because we want to be women who not only read the word, we want to be women who hide the word in our hearts. Yeah.

It's a hard thing to do. We're not really a culture that does a lot of memorizing these days. Because everything's right there. If you need it, you can find it. I know my husband's phone number and my own phone number. Sometimes my mom and sometimes Rachel's, although I get those confused because they're similar. So really, I think with confidence, I only know my own and my husband's. So what, just a couple of things. Talk to us about scripture memorization.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, I've had to grow in my love and ability to memorize scripture. And part of it came from, well,

To make a long story short, part of it came from my husband, who's pastor. We were going through, I believe it was Colossians was the first one, even before Colossians. But most recently, I would say Colossians as a church. He challenged us to memorize the book of Colossians as he was preaching through it slowly. So he was preaching through it in small bites.

And so he was encouraging us week to week to memorize it. And then on Sunday, before he would start preaching the sermon, he would ask for volunteers who had memorized to stand up and recite the portions that they had memorized. That's so cool. I love this so much. Yeah, it was so cool. And what was really cool about it- And were people like super getting on board? Super getting on board. Let me tell you something. I'm going to try not to cry when I tell this story, but

It was just beautiful to see families memorizing together, families standing up as a group memorizing portions of scripture or a little eight year old standing up and reciting the verses that they had memorized over the week.

And then in our Bible study, my lady's Bible study, we happened to be studying Colossians as well. So we were memorizing it. And one of our oldest members in the church had never really memorized scripture before in her life. And she just stood up and memorized so beautifully the Christ hymn from Colossians 1. And it was just beautiful to see.

And then that same woman, maybe a year later, maybe not even a year later, had a massive stroke and lost a lot of mobility and a lot of her daily activity and things like that. But what she held on to and still holds on to is the word of God and that it's hidden in her heart. I can give another example. My grandma, she died about a month before her 104th birthday. Years and years ago. Wow. Whoa.

My grandma was 103 years old when she passed away and she had Alzheimer's and you would go and visit her. She didn't know who I was. She didn't know who her son was. She didn't know who was dead, who was alive, but she could do two things. As the old people say, where I come from, she could raise a hymn. That means she could, you know, just think of a hymn at the drop of a hat and sing it. And she could recite scripture. She never forgot the word of God.

And she never forgot those hymns that she learned over the years of her Christian life. And hopefully whetting the appetites of people who are listening of just the beauty and value of memorizing scripture. And one of the things that I have found as I've memorized is that it helps me to pray for people. So when I can't think of anything else to pray for Amanda or Hannah or Rachel or Jeremy or whoever else,

I can pray for them the words of scripture and there are portions of it that just come to mind when I don't know what to pray. I just, that's the word that I memorize. Yes. And when I'm sleeping, Amanda just threw her hands in the air and said, that's the Holy Spirit.

I just hadn't thought about scripture memory as being like, I just feel like the Lord's probably like, okay, finally you've given me this giant tool in your tool belt now that I can just use to empower you to pray for people. Well, let me tell you another thing about it. Don't get discouraged when you're memorizing scripture. I'm going to give a little bit of technique too, but when you're memorizing scripture, don't be upset if you feel like you've forgotten everything. Like you memorized Colossians two years ago and now you're like,

Don't ask me to recite it because I can't remember what I recited. Don't be discouraged by that because you know what? When you were just talking about the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit gives you what you need when you need it. And I know that for a fact. I always tell the story of

My sister, just being on her bedside, just as she was passing away, she had gotten sick from cancer and she was literally taking her last breath. And as she was taking those last breaths and I'm crying out to the Lord in grief.

over her passing, the Lord just brought to mind a scripture to pray over her as she was transitioning from this life to the next. And the scripture that I recited over her, I did not even know that I knew it. I'm telling you, I had, it wasn't even a scripture that I had memorized recently, or it was in the forefront of

my mind, had been doing devotions on it, had studied it, but the Lord just brought it to mind at that moment. And I believe with all my heart that the Holy Spirit does give us what we need. So it's not a futile effort. Even if you feel like I'm going to forget like two weeks after I memorize it, don't lose heart. Trust that the Lord is working even in your memorization. That's such a good word. I grew up, I went to a Christian school. So we had to memorize sort of like a

chapter a month-ish or maybe a little bit less. And it was just like part of school. But that in my adult life has been such a ministry, a latent ministry to me. I remember one of the hardest days of our life, my husband and I, and coming out of a hospital and a really horrible diagnosis and just out of my body came, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome the world. And it was just, I wasn't like opening my Bible. It was just there. And

And, you know, a couple of weeks after that, still walking through that journey, I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of my own voice quoting that the thief comes to kill, steal and destroy. But I have come that you'll have life and you'll have it in abundance. Like the word of God, like the spirit was like living in me and that the word was in me and ministering to me.

to my soul without even the word open in front of me. In my sleep. You weren't even awake. I wasn't even awake and I was quoting scripture. That's amazing. That's amazing.

I mean, and it gives kind of another level of meaning to the idea of having the word hidden in your heart. Sometimes it just feels hidden. You don't know, you know, it's hidden. Where is that? I can't remember it. I don't know, but the Lord wakes you up in the middle of the night or he gives it to you in a dream, you know, whatever the case is. I know for me, I have been so excited about turning 50. Well,

But with it, you know, comes a lot of things, one of which is sleeplessness. It's just hard to fall asleep. And so on those nights, what I do is I just start from the beginning of whatever book and I just recite it until the Lord lulls me to sleep by his word. And it's sweet and I love it.

And so there's so many things that we could talk about in regards to that. Can I just give a couple of tips? Please. I would love that. And everyone listening is nodding, going like, yes, please, tips. We need that. Okay. I learned this from Andy Davis, who's a pastor at First Baptist Church, Durham, North Carolina. He has a little scripture memory guidebook. I can't think of the name of it. It might just be scripture memory. I'm not sure, but you can Google scripture memory. Yeah.

Anyway, basically the idea is to memorize a verse a day. And so what I would do is when I was having a commute pre-COVID, I would listen to music

that verse, whatever I was memorizing for the day. And I would listen to it over and over on audio Bible. I would write it out and I would repeat it at least 10 times. I don't know why 10 times, but for some reason, 10 times work. And as I'm reading it, let me just flip real quick. As I'm reading it, I am emphasizing a different word each

each time. So I did this at a retreat and I had the ladies kind of go through this exercise of learning how to memorize. And they were so excited and encouraged and it was fun. I gave them a pop quiz and they all passed. Um, but let's see verse you're in verse one, how happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk according to the Lord's instruction. Now, another thing, as I just read it, there's a cadence to it. If you listen, I read it really fast, but

remember the cadence and kind of lean into the cadence of the verse. And so the first time I read it, I might say,

how happy are they whose way is blameless, who walk according to the Lord's instruction? Number two, how happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk according to the Lord's instruction? And then you just keep on like that. How happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk according to the Lord's instruction? And as you do that, kind of emphasizing a different word as you move along, you'll find that it's getting pretty settled in your mind and in your heart. And so just

I recite it as many times as you, I take it piece by piece. And once I've memorized a few words, I repeat those words over and over again. Then I add a few words. I repeat those over and over again. Add a few words, repeat those. By the end of the day, I have that one verse. Day two comes along.

Start over. All of verse one and add on your verse two for the day. So every time I practice verse two, I'm going to repeat verse one because I already have that one down in my head. It sounds like it might be a lot, but trust me, I've memorized whole books of the Bible. You have multiple books of the Bible memorized.

Look, no, I'm not a master memorizer, trust me. So I feel like you're holding back. I mean, if you asked me to recite Colossians, I could probably do chapter one. And I don't know, maybe a little bit of chapter two. I don't know. Psalm 119, I started memorizing it with a friend and we got like, I would say to verse five.

Up in the 40s or so. And then we stopped for some reason. So I do, I want to restart that. And my goal is to memorize Psalm 119. So if anybody want to memorize Psalm 119 with me, look me up and that'll give me some outward pressure to get back into it.

But I'm just saying that to say it goes really fast. So just take small bites, build on your prior knowledge. Don't lose what you already got. And then even if you're in Psalm 119 and you're up to verse 76, you have to go back and recite all 74 verses that you already have in your memory and just keep building on it. Yeah.

If you read Psalm 119 straight through, it would take you about 15 minutes. So even if you're memorizing and you have to go back through all those verses, it's not taking awful. You can do that in the bank. You can do that in a carpool line. You can do that by the pool. You can, you know, you can do that while you're washing dishes, while you're cooking dinner. You can, I found, this is another kind of tip.

I just noticed little blocks in my day, little blank spaces in my day that I could fill with God's word. And I just noticed like, wow, Christy, you actually have quite a bit of time. A lot, yeah. Two minute, five minute slots of time.

that you can input God's word and just remember and recite it. So those are a few things. I feel like you've thrown the gauntlet. I'll add, I think when you say do it with a friend, like especially right now, since we're all sort of less in person with people outside of our family, over quarantine, I had my kids memorize Psalm 130.

and they were doing, you know, probably like four verses a week. And so it was less, but it was helpful. I think there's something about teaching it, you know, like where you're not just teaching yourself, but when you're required, like I'm looking at it and making sure and correcting them and getting it like, even that, like when you're interacting with a kid or a friend to teach it or to like test somebody else, like you're just, it's also like getting locked up in your brain as well. So like, and we did, I mean, as a

kid, we would always do songs or rhythms or clap or stomp or hand motions. Like there's all these things that you can do with your body that will sort of reinforce it in your brain. But like my kids will never forget Psalm 130. Like they may not recite it for years, but when they need to, they will be able to pull it up and they'll know it. And also like that's just such a great way to disciple your family. Yeah. Another point.

part of what you're saying is just meditation. So I also noticed that as I was memorizing, memorization and meditation kind of go hand in hand for me. So the more I repeat and recite, I'm just thinking about it, praying through it,

you know, just mulling it around the word. I'm just marinating in the word. And so it's just sweet meditation. And that also aids memorization as you're meditating on the word, the Lord continues to hide it in your heart. And then it does help with memorization. That's good. Cause it's not just the rote memorization. It's not just knowing the words. It's actually the tool, like memorization is like the means to the end, which is the like being able to meditate in like

grow in affection for God and His Word. All of those things. Do. Amen. He hears and endures. Yeah. I love that. Okay. Well, as we wrap up, of course, we've had a great time talking about... I really would rather not wrap up. I'm sorry. Me neither. This is so fun.

fun. I know. We've talked about the beauty, goodness, and truth in scripture. I mean, what a beautiful hour of talking about that together. I've loved this. Christy, thank you. But let's now look up and around. Where are we seeing beauty, goodness, and or truth in our lives today? For me, one thing, okay, this is a word to the wise. Don't go for a hot walk in the sun an hour before you're supposed to be on a podcast. Oh, no.

Your body won't settle down that fast, even after a quick shower. So that wasn't my smartest move, but I just have really been enjoying in these days taking nice long walks,

Seeing the beauty of God's creation, praying for people, listening to wonderful podcasts like yours, and just taking in the goodness of the Lord and the slower pace that the Lord has given us in this season. And so that's one way. So as I've been walking and running, I have this app that I listen to and there's a running coach on the app and he's just so motivating. And I feel like, I'm like, is he ministering to me?

while I'm running? What's happening right now? You know, because he'll say things like, it's not about the run, but it is about the run. And he's like, you know, one day I'm going to push you and I'm going to tell you to run harder than you've ever run and run faster than you've ever run. He said, you know what? But today is not that day. Today, just run. And it just ministers to my heart because it makes me think about the Christian life.

life. Some days I have to run hard in a Christian life. And some days, you know what? I just got to keep my feet moving and just run. Anyway, that's one area. And that's where I've been seeing the beauty and goodness of the Lord is in these walks and in these runs and listen to that run coach encouragement. I might need you to introduce me to him.

I will. I definitely will. I don't run. Maybe there's a walk-in coach. We're going to have so many good links in our show notes this week. Well, I'm going to tell you about this run coach because he will make you want to. If you're not a runner, it's a great little app to start with. I had a very small blip in my life where I don't.

know that I would have said that I was a runner, but I did attempt to run on a regular basis. Yeah. Not for long. Not for long. It's not my favorite thing, honestly. You know what I like more than the running itself? I like the sense of accomplishment. I like being done. And seeing that

I like having run. But I'm not the fittest person, but I used to not be able to run to the end of a block. And now I can run a couple of miles. I can run 20, 25, 30 minutes. I'm not fast. I mean, you can probably walk as fast as I run. I'm just saying the sense of having stamina and strength

and endurance and perseverance. And again, so much application to the Christian life, right? Like we may start small. We may start with Psalm 119 and say, you know what? I've never really studied the Bible before. I never really read a whole Psalm, but I'm going to start right here. And you'll see how the Lord grows you in endurance and perseverance and is able to allow you to take in more of his word. And I'll just end. Verse 32, it's my favorite

verse in Psalm 119. If I were to choose one verse, it would be this one. It's verse 32. And it says, I pursue the way of your commands for you broaden my understanding. And in another version, it says, I run in the path of your commands when you enlarge my heart. And it's sort of like as we run

in the way of the Lord, that he gives us greater capacity for more. The more we run, the more we seek him, the more we obey him. He gives us capacity for more of him. That's my encouragement. And I'll stop right there. Oh, I receive that. Thank you, Christy. It has been such a delight to have you with us today. And we are definitely going to do this again. Yeah. Spoiler alert. We're going to be bothering you at some point to do this again. And we can't wait to meet more of your friends.

Yes, yes. I would love that you do that too.

And so it'll be fun to have her come and hang out with us. To Christy's. I know. Yeah. Christy, Christy. Yeah. It's just, it was very tidy. It works out nicely. It does. Yeah. So yeah, we're excited about that. And then, I mean, I hate to say goodbye, but it is time to say goodbye. But until then, Christy, do you remember what we say? Keep opening your Bible. Keep opening your Bible.