Psalm 119:25-32 | What It Looks Like to Depend

As I've mentioned already, my name is Ben. I'm a member here at First Baptist Church of Artesia. And it's a joy to be able to give you God's Word this morning. If you don't have a Bible, there are Bibles in front of you in the pews. We ask that you use that. And if you don't own one, please go ahead and take it home. We'd love for you to have a copy of God's Word.

This morning, we'll be spending our time in Psalm 119:25-32. We find ourselves back here as I believe I preached through a different section of this particular psalm in the past. But as we turn back to it, it's my joy to read this sweet stanza for us. So as you turn to Psalm 119:25-32, hear the word of the Lord.

My life is down in the dust; give me life through your word. I told you about my life, and you answered me; teach me your statutes. Help me understand the meaning of your precepts so that I can meditate on your wonders. I am weary from grief; strengthen me through your word. Keep me from the way of deceit and graciously give me your instruction. I have chosen the way of truth; I have set your ordinances before me. I cling to your decrees; Lord, do not put me to shame. I pursue the way of your commands, for you broaden my understanding. — Psalm 119:25-32 (CSB)

Pray with me. Father, help us make much of prayer, that in our asking you delight to give. And so as we come to your word, give us understanding, for you alone can bring light that we might understand. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

As we gather here this morning, I'd like to know if anyone would know where this quote comes from: "We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents." That's pretty quick! If you don't know who that quote comes from, it comes from somebody shouted out – it comes from Bob Ross, who was one of the most, if not the most, popular painters that were televised. I honestly don't know too much about him, but I know that my wife knew him a little bit growing up, not personally, but just on TV.

But in the context of Bob Ross sharing that quote, he's talking about mistakes on a canvas. If somebody were to, you know, bring a stray brushstroke, and now you have something else from the painting that you were trying to paint. Typically what I've seen is that those stray brushstrokes end up being turned into trees, and they look like pretty good trees by the end of them. Something that he would often do, and something that others would often do, is that they would play a Bob Ross painting tutorial in the background and they would copy him because he was really good at instructing people. It was simple. It was fluid.

If you were to follow him as the video played, by the 20th stroke, you're not really sure what the canvas is going to hold. And yet, by the 1,000th mark, the 1,500th mark, you'll be able to see the picture, if not a fully completed picture, of what you were trying to make, whether it was the mountains or the sea or what have you. If you were to step back and look at your canvas, you would see a full picture.

The problem that we often have, however, when we think of somebody instructing us from step one to the final step, is that we're not entirely comfortable with what happens between the first stroke and the last. If someone was the painter and the canvas was your life, how ready would you be to trust them with how that canvas turns out? And the underlying question that I'm trying to get at is this: Can we trust God to direct our steps? Can we depend on him for tomorrow? Can God write all of the missed brushstrokes on the canvas of our lives? Is God dependable enough to trust with whichever way life might take us? What we'll find in the passage is the overwhelming answer of yes. God is sufficient for all of our needs, that we can depend on him and his word.

And so our main point for this morning is this: Depend on God's word in trouble. We'll see this first: Depend on God's word in the dust in verses 25 to 27. And then depend on God's word in grief in verses 28 to 29. And then depend on God's word in obedience 30 to 32.

Depending on God's Word in the Dust

So let's turn our eyes and look how the psalmist addresses and considers what's happening in his life. Verse 25 says, “My life is down in the dust.” The psalmist begins with this statement that if we're to trust that God's word is dependable, he starts in a place where he needs to rely on someone. He's not just talking about what's happening to him presently, but he's talking about all of his life: past, present, and surely if there is a future. He's talking about each aspect and every part of his being—his mind, his body, his soul—all aspects of who he is and who you are cries out is down in the dust.

When we see this phrase “down in the dust,” what we find in the biblical text is that dust is not only what man is made out of. But at the same time, we see throughout the Bible when somebody dies—David, when his son dies, he tears his clothes, puts ash on his head, puts dust on himself. When victory is given to the enemy and not to God's people, God's people tear their own clothes, put sackcloth and ash on. There's a pattern when it comes to dust that relates itself with death. And so when the psalmist is saying in a very poetic way, “my life is down in the dust,” what he's trying to say is that I am near death. I am at death's door. This is my posture as I come now to God. All of my person and all of my life—this is who I am at this moment—is down in the dust. One translation, I think, provides it a little bit more clearly. It says, “My soul clings to the dust.” Clings in the same way that when your mouth is dry and your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth. That is the same imagery that clinging to the dust is painting. The psalmist is so near to death that he can't see anything else.

And yet what does he ask God to do in response? “My life is down in the dust. Give me life through your word.” If the state of the psalmist is that of being near death, so his response is to ask to be revived. The psalmist asks God, knowing that God knows his position, and so asks boldly, “give me life.” And not just give me life, but “give me life through your word.”

The word of God is significant in this particular psalm because if you were with us the past time you were in this psalm, remember that Psalm 119 is trying to give an exhaustive description of what the word of God does in the life of the believer who remains in it. The different stanzas are separated by *Aleph*, *Beth*, *Gimel*, *Daleth* and continues on for 22 times—22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet—each of these stanzas describing beginning with that first letter. And this particular stanza begins with the letter *Daleth*. And our main point is depend. It just so happened to work that way. I wasn't really thinking about making the main point start with D.

And yet what the psalmist asks through an exhaustive asking is, “give me life.” To the one who is at death's door, he asks the one who is the author of life and death. That revival comes through the word of God. And there was an understanding in the Old Testament that when we think about life and when we think about death, as Leviticus 18:5 says:

Keep my statutes and ordinances; a person will live if he does them. I am the Lord. — Leviticus 18:5 (CSB)

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 reads:

I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, love the Lord your God, obey him, and remain faithful to him. For he is your life, and he will prolong your days as you live in the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” — Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (CSB)

The Old Testament saints had this understanding that life looked like obeying and following the Lord because it was only in obeying and following the Lord that they were actually able to experience life as it was meant to be. Following the Lord was where God's people flourished. And so the psalmist asks, “Give me life.” And where does his confidence to ask of God this request come from? Well, verse 26 shows us, because God answers and he teaches. The psalmist is confident to come because God answers and teaches.

Look down and see verse 26. The psalmist says, “I told you about my life and you answered me. Teach me your statutes.” And when the psalmist says this, he's not just saying, “I told you one time in the past and you answered me one time in the past.” When the psalmist is speaking, he's saying, “I told you about my life. I tell you about my life. I've told you time and time again about my life, and each time you have answered me.” This is someone who knows the Lord and knows that the Lord knows them because the Lord knows their life. This is someone who comes to prayer because they know that the God who listens to prayer hears.

There is confidence to go before the one who sits enthroned because he hears the requests and the cry of his saints. And so he at the same time asks another thing: “Teach me your statutes.” This isn't an empty request. He's not just going to the Lord waiting to see what can jump out at him so that he could be pulled up. He specifically asks, “Teach me your statutes,” following the very thing that he asked for in verse 25, how it will be done through. That if God gives me life through his word, necessarily he must teach me his statutes. And by the statutes of God, what's meant is God's revealed will and his law. Particularly the very book that we have at the time of the psalmist, all of the books and the writings that they would have had. But the point is clear that God is the one who teaches. God is the one who gives understanding.

And so God must teach in order for the psalmist to learn that there's a posture of knowing that God must first make something real and revealed before we can understand it. And so in verse 27, because he's the one who we can come to and knows us, so he gives us understanding. And the psalmist says in verse 27, “Help me understand the meaning of your precepts so that I can meditate on your wonders.” Help me understand. I mean, we can think of help in a bunch of different ways. The question for us is in what way is the psalmist asking for help from God?

It's the difference between, you know, asking someone to help you with your groceries. It's the difference of, you know, you asking someone to help you with your taxes, or maybe a child asking you to help them get a toy off of the top shelf. Those are all different ways that the word 'help' plays out. And yet, the way that the psalmist is asking for help, think of it this way, it's the strongest possible way of asking somebody for something. When the psalmist says, “Help me,” he's asking God, “cause me to understand your precepts.” The action of who's causing the understanding isn't the psalmist, but it's God. And he's asking him, “God, make me understand. Cause me to understand. Help me understand your precepts.”

And this isn't as though the psalmist is commanding God that, “God, you need to do this or else.” No, he's asking it as though somebody who's part of a king's court and they come to the king and request something of the king, and the king follows what they say. That's not the king doing what the other person demanded, but it's out of ability, out of joy, out of a position of superiority. And yet the request is given earnestly. If we know that God will answer prayer, so we then ask not shyly. We don't come to him and ask timidly, but we go before him and ask boldly because we know that he will answer prayer, prayer that accords with his will.

We need to simply ask: is this often our posture when we go to God? Do we come with the same feeling of helplessness? Or do we live life believing that this is never us? Or that when the time comes that we need help, we can just look in ourselves and muster up the courage, the ability, the passion to be able to see things through without help from the one who revives our lives? The psalmist says, “No, he will ask.” And he will ask God, knowing that God will answer prayer.

And there's a reason that he asks to understand the meaning of God's precepts, to understand the meaning of what God says about the world, says about himself, says about us. He does it for this reason: “God, give me understanding so that I can meditate on your wonders.” He doesn't say, “Give me understanding or help me understand the meaning of your precepts so that I can meditate on your precepts.” He says, “Help me understand the meaning of your precepts so that I can meditate on your wonders.”

The word 'wonders' there is a little bit different in terms of perspective. What it's describing is the works of God that people throughout the Old Testament have seen, specifically the works of God where you look at them and wonder what was the intention behind this. What is the love and the care of the God behind these faithful acts? Wonder causes you to step back and see how God is working and rejoice in what he's done. It's the difference between an Israelite walking across the Red Sea, seeing the water parted and just enjoying the view, compared to Moses on the other side, the Egyptians crushed (Exodus 15), rejoicing with the Israelites that our God has done this, that he has brought salvation for us. This is the stepping back from the canvas and seeing the picture as it's meant to be. That is what it means to meditate on God's wonder.

If meditation is the stepping back from the canvas, God's precepts are the guidelines that allow us to see what the picture will turn out to be like. It's the very laws of God that structure and bring a framework around our world that we can understand what life looks like compared to death. Until his precepts and his wonder come together so that we would be able to see what the Lord is doing in the present time, in the present day, in the very life that we live. Beloved, when the psalmist says, “My life is down in the dust,” he's not just saying that for show. He says that as someone who is near death's door, who may feel like there is nothing else out there for them. And yet his response isn't to throw in the towel. His response isn't to turn to worldly things, to turn to other things that will never satisfy. He says, “Give me life through your word because I know that you have answered and you will certainly answer again.” So help me understand the meaning of your precepts that I can meditate on your wonders.

Finding Strength in Grief

And so our second point for this morning: if the first is to depend on God's word in the dust, so depend on God's word in grief. I'm sure many of us, either now or in the past, have related to what the psalmist says so succinctly in verse 28: “I am weary from grief.”

The weariness that's described here is the same weariness that Job experienced when his friends were speaking of more than they knew as he wept before God. Think of Job, whom God himself pointed to as a model, his life destroyed and in tatters. Him not knowing the reason, his friends coming along and telling him that the reason that everything befell him was because he was a sinner and this was his punishment. How sharp can the words of God come from people that say they know him? It's the same kind of weariness. The idea of being weathered down as when a house leaks because, as Ecclesiastes 10:18 says:

Because of laziness the roof caves in, and because of negligent hands the house leaks. — Ecclesiastes 10:18 (CSB)

That's the kind of weariness in view. It's a weariness that's been brought forth both by negligence and an active misuse and misapplication of the word of God. These are the things that are describing the weariness in front of us. And not only weariness but grief. And this grief isn't just grief in general, but emotional grief. It's the kind of grief that a parent experiences at the foolishness of their children. It's the kind of grief that follows when someone realizes that though they've been enjoying their life, they realize that it was for naught, that it was worth nothing, that it was worthless. The grief that comes at the end of realization, the grief that comes at the point of helplessness. The psalmist says, “I am weary from grief.”

Does that describe you? Saint, are you weary from grief? When our relationships aren't as sweet as they used to be? When our bodies don't do what we want them to do, when regret fills our minds because we wish we would have lived differently, how much time do we give to the 'what ifs' of our lives? Before we know it, we've let hatred and bitterness and sorrow sit on the thrones of our hearts, the thrones of our souls. And we find ourselves in the same place as the psalmist is, and we say, “I am weary from grief.”

And yet again, the psalmist instructs us: what does he do? He turns to God and asks, “Strengthen me through your word.” The psalmist asks because he knows. He asks because the Lord will answer. Will the Lord deny you himself? This is an earnest request, the same way that the first request was given. The psalmist asks for strengthening that God would do this because he needed it and he knows that God will. For the one who is weary from grief, trust in the one who strengthens, who gives life according to his word.

And so this strengthening looks like what verse 29 outlines. And so it reads, “Keep me from the way of deceit and graciously give me your instruction.” The idea of 'keep' is the same as 'removing.' So remove somebody from the way of deceit, this false way. God's people were told to remove strange gods from among them in Genesis 35:2. They're told to remove all evil in Isaiah 1:16. They're told to remove false worship from their sight in Amos 5:21-23. And so here they're told to, or rather, the psalmist asks God, “Remove false ways from me. Keep me from the way of deceit.”

When we come across this phrase, “the way of deceit,” immediately we think of the obvious ways where the world is luring us to sin. We can think of the different ways that can easily put us into a position where we shouldn't be or do the things that we ought not to do. The Ten Commandments is a clear picture of things for us not to do. And yet this word 'deceit' actually takes on a fuller meaning than just 'don't do these things.' But that the way of deceit can appear can be similar to what we've already described about Job's friends. It's interesting that in Job 13:4, Job's friends are described as, and I'll use a kind of an archaic translation here, “dobbers of deceit” is what they say. The ESV says, “you whitewash with lies,” and the CSB says, “you use lies like plaster.”

But that word 'dobbers' is interesting, because when I saw that, I don't know what a dobber is. I don't know if anybody knows what a dobber is in here. I know what a Doberman is, which is a dog. But a dobber is somebody who is a poor painter. It's somebody who doesn't use their paint well. And if we think back to the picture at the beginning, that if there is a canvas and God's glory and God are meant to be the picture, a dobber is somebody who uses the precepts of God, the guidelines that we have to see the picture, and distorts them. In a way, what Job's friends were doing was they were distorting the picture using the precepts and truths of God, which made it difficult to see what was true and what was not. And so a way of deceit isn't only those things which are obvious, but it's also those things where we can misapply God's truth in ways that truth can be mismanaged, that we no longer are able to see life as it looks like. And that's the kind of thing that the psalmist asks to be kept from. “Keep me not only from those things which are obvious, but keep me from all ways of deceit.”

And at the same time that he asks to be kept from that, he then says, “Graciously give me your instruction.” Notice how at each instance, the psalmist doesn't tuck behind a corner. It's front. It's out front. It's for everybody to see. It's for him to come back to and return to that God's word is integral to the way that he will live his life. And so he asks God again, “Graciously give me your instruction,” for he knows that there is no life apart from it.

The Way of Obedience and Truth

And so for the psalmist to depend on God's word looks like this: it's to depend on God's word in the dust; it's to depend on God's word in grief; and lastly, it's to depend on God's word in obedience. If you look at the text, you'll see that these next three verses begin with 'I.' And it follows with something that the psalmist does. The first is, “I have chosen,” the second, “I cling,” and third, “I pursue.”

The idea of when the psalmist says in verse 30, “I have chosen the way of truth,” it's that truth fundamentally is certainty. “I have chosen the sure way. I have chosen the right foundation. I have chosen this way and I choose it deliberately.” The psalmist didn't fall into the way of truth. He chose the way of truth. And he didn't choose it because it was convenient. He chose it because it's true. And whenever this language appears in Scripture, it's always a careful, thought-out decision. To choose to obey and follow God is the psalmist's resolve to not choose the false way. There comes a point, there is a decision to be made: will we obey God or will we not?

When we think about obedience, sometimes we can make it so abstract that we don't really know what it is anymore. Obedience looks like this: You get into a fight with somebody at a restaurant, the food comes, and because you're a Christian couple, you'll pray for the food. And in that moment, you realize, *I'm supposed to pray for this because I'm a Christian. Why is there anger in my heart?* And immediately those things reorient what you're doing in the moment. That obedience looks like asking for forgiveness. Obedience looks like seeking reconciliation. Obedience looks like taking accountability for the very things that you had done and the things that are boiling up in your heart. That obedience is chosen because choosing obedience is something that God has given us to do. And so the psalmist says, “I have chosen the way of truth. I have chosen the way of truth.”

And not only that, “I have set your ordinances before me.” More broadly, when we think of ordinances, what's in view is the justices of God, the right laws of God, the things that God does where he governs well and displays authority well. That the psalmist is placing these ordinances, these constitutions, right things in nature, these realities about how God has decided to make the world, and he makes himself accountable for them. He's saying, “I have chosen the way of truth.” And the way of truth looks like living along these parameters, and those parameters are the way that God has made the world.

And so he says he chooses the way of truth. In verse 31, he says, “I cling to your decrees.” And remember the picture. Verse 25 says, “My life is down in the dust.” Another translation says, “My soul clings to the dust.” And that same word appears again in verse 31: “I cling to your decrees.” That if in the beginning he clung to death, clung to that which was taking his life, so now in verse 31, “I cling to your decrees.” He holds dearly to it. He holds on tightly to it. It's the same word that's described of Ruth clinging to Naomi in Ruth 1:14. It's not something that's easily removed, and it becomes integral in a very real sense, part of the person.

And what is this thing that the person or rather the psalmist clings to? He clings to God's decrees, God's testimonies. He clings to the very word of God that testifies about the God who keeps, the God who sustains, the God who gives life. His laws are good, not because there's another measure, but because God is good. God is good. Therefore, his laws are good. God is just, therefore, his laws are just. Therefore, the psalmist clings to his decrees. He clings to God's decrees because there's an urgency in his life, the urgency and need to be near God.

And while it's true that we choose to obey, it's not as though we don't count the cost. Obedience oftentimes doesn't come easy. There's a cost to be counted. What happens when we're too beaten and bruised and reading our Bibles and praying to God becomes burdensome? What if during the week we find that we want nothing to do with God's word, nothing to do with praying with the saints because it's too cumbersome, too heavy, too tedious? But Ed Welch, a biblical counselor, says that sometimes, even when we don't feel like it, we have to force-feed ourselves God's word in the same way that a sick person needs to eat food. The sick person might not realize that they need to eat food so that they have something going into their body so they might have energy. In the same way, the wearied Christian who wants nothing to do with God's word should precisely go to that same word to be revived that their soul could be strengthened because that's the place where God will certainly meet his promises.

So if we know that God revives and revitalizes through his word, then we should go to it. Especially when we're downcast, the question doesn't become whether or not we're asking. It's to ask the question, do we believe that God will act and move when we pray? Do we scoff when we read this and we're reading through what the psalmist is praying? Do we look at it and scoff at the psalmist and say that how could he be praying these things? Do we scoff at his requests? Do we look at his requests and say that these are things we could never ask for in our own lives because we've actually made God's truths and promises lower, not worth our time to ask. Beloved, prayer not only reorients our dispositions, but it can quiet the voices of doubt, sin, anger, and disappointment. Because what prayer does is it tells us something real about the world: that God hears his children when they pray. When you pray to God and pray to him what he's promised, what he will do, he hears your prayer. So don't think that your prayer for strength has failed. Don't think that your prayer for joy in his word has failed. Don't think that your prayer that you would wake up and be satisfied in him has failed because those are the very things he calls you to ask for, and he delights to give you it.

And for what reason does he say, “I cling to your decrees”? He follows it up by saying, “Lord, do not put me to shame.” Here's the psalmist expressing a fear in his heart. He's chosen the way of truth. He's clung to God's decrees. And he adds another request, “Lord, do not put me to shame.” He appeals to God's covenant name—that when he uses this capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, he's appealing to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who made covenant with the fathers of Israel, the one who promised them that there would be a seed that would come that would crush the head of the serpent. He's appealing to the God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt, brought them into the promised land. That is the God that he appeals to when he calls on this name.

And he asks, “Do not put me to shame.” He's asking that the Lord would vindicate him before his enemies. And when we think of shame, often we think of something that happens inwardly. But in the Hebrew mind, when they think of shame, it's somebody comes into shame; they're shamed publicly. That shame is experienced something out of yourself. It's the shame that somebody experiences when they lose a battle and the enemy parades them around their city displaying that they've shown their power over you. However, there's a promise that God gives for those who submit to the will of God. And he says he will never let that person come to shame. This request of not coming into shame. Is that something you've asked? Maybe it's something that you've been afraid of.

Maybe there's sin in our own hearts that we've let fester and grow. Because the lie we've believed is that shame is stronger than the cleansing power of Jesus. But it's not as though that observation doesn't have any merits. We only need to think of our own experiences maybe in the past, even at church, that at one time, at one place, in one location, we shared our burdens with another, and what we received was not grace and love, but shame, ridicule, embarrassment. That shame sticks to our minds, and it's there and it's there and it's there. We felt like Job before his friends, humiliated, being confronted with truths distorted. And so we clung to the dust. We were wearied from grief, our life characterized by shame. And yet Jesus went to the cross despising the shame. That if we need a picture of what it looks like to depend on God's word in trouble, Jesus on the cross quotes Psalm 22.

On the cross, hanging naked from our point of view, from the world's point of view, shamed. And yet the request of the psalmist, “do not put me to shame,” turns into a declaration in Romans 10:11 when it says:

For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, — Romans 10:11 (CSB)

All of those who believe on Jesus will not be put to shame. Depend on God's word in trouble. Depend on the word. Depend on Jesus, the one who you've been united to. Repent of your sins and trust that forgiveness is available there for you in the presence of the one who did all that we could never do. Isaiah 53:3-4 says:

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; he was despised, and we didn’t value him. Yet he himself bore our sicknesses and he carried our pains; but we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. — Isaiah 53:3-4 (CSB)

Beloved, we turn and trust a savior in whom we have no shame because all that we are deserving of punishment, justice, are met in Christ. They're met in Christ. Verse 32. So the psalmist says, “I pursue the way of your commandments.” And it's interesting that he says, “I pursue.” Other translations say, “I run.” And that's different because the beginning of Psalm 119 says, “How happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk according to the Lord's instruction.” And then in verse three again, “they do nothing wrong. They walk in his ways.” An interesting note is this where the psalm begins this walk. In this particular stanza, the psalmist highlights the difference: “I run. I pursue the way of your commands.” That it's his joy. It's his urgency. That he's earnest to obey the law of the Lord. Why? Because “you broaden my understanding.” For you broaden my understanding. Because you've given me knowledge and understanding that I can meditate on your wonders. You've given me understanding about your word, your precepts that shape this canvas. You've made not only given meaning to my life and my soul, but the very thing that I live for has come and has arrived, and that is Jesus.

Responding to God's Dependability

If you're here and you haven't trusted in Christ, that offer is made ready and available for you. In the same way that a father and a mother will not turn down their child for help, why would our heavenly Father reject your request? Why would Jesus not welcome you into his fold? To all who are weary and heavy laden, he promises that he will give them rest. James 1:5 says:

Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him. — James 1:5 (CSB)

When we think of a passage like this, there's so many things that we can do in response. Let me enumerate just some of those things for us to think through even as we head into this week. Pray through these requests. Ask these things for yourself. Pray these things for one another. Pray that each one would be given life through God's word. Pray that each member of this church, those who are weary from grief, would be strengthened through God's word. Prefer one another, remind one another of Scripture. And by that, I don't mean, you know, pepper each other endlessly with verses, but it does mean allowing our relationships to be shaped by God's word. It's not enough that we just give verses to one another, but in doing life together, in a sense, we earn the privilege to speak into each other's lives. Something that is ours in Christ.

For the Christian, read, memorize, meditate, tell the Lord about your life and know that he answers. Discipline yourself. Help somebody discipline—not discipline you in a bad way—but that you would be disciplined in reading God's word. And it helps to have others alongside you in reading God's word together. If we truly believe that God's word gives life, if we truly believe that God's word strengthens. And so to the one who's depending on God's word in trouble, in the dust, and in grief, so we can depend on God's word in obedience, that it's sufficient for us, that he enables us to do his will. While we may not be able to explain everything that happens in our lives, we do know the one who holds our life in his hands. We know the one who gave his Son and we know his name, and it is Jesus. We can trust God to be the painter of the canvas of our life because he's sufficient for all of our days.

And in a moment, we'll be singing these words, but I hope that you can meditate on them for this brief moment and rejoice at God's wonder: "When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee. I only design your dross to consume and your gold to refine." Pray with me. Father, we thank you that you are dependable and not only dependable, but you meet all of our needs. That you're sufficient to revive our souls. That you desire to do so. That it's your joy to strengthen your children. Help us ask that we would be dependent upon you. Pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.