Blessed is the man [whose]…delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:1-2, ESV)
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him…. (Psalm 8: 3-4, ESV)
Suppose for a moment you’ve qualified for the U.S. Open at The Country Club. You are filled with contradictions. You earned it, but you don’t feel good enough. You are excited beyond words, but you are also scared to death.
You arrive in Brookline, MA. The atmosphere is charged. You have an eerie sense that a picture of Francis Ouimet is staring at you. You look up and see Jordon and Justin strolling to the practice tee. Your instinctive reaction is to ask for an autograph, but you decide against it.
Eventually making your way to the practice tee, you walk past the giants of the game until you reach the designated area with your name printed on a red, white, and blue sign.
Forty-five minutes from teeing off in a U.S. Open, a million thoughts rush through your mind, not the least of which is the image of blocking your drive over the heads of the throngs that line the fairway.
Then, you wake up! What? Wait a minute! This experience was so real. It can’t have been a dream. You smelled the freshly mown grass and heard the rumblings of the Boston crowds. No, no, no! This can’t be. You’re certain you were there!
Like dreams, many stories are fictional. As we all know, what makes for great books simply will not suffice for the rough-and-tumble experiences of real life. Contrary to those who doubt any overarching, true story of the world, Scripture claims to be the self-attesting, true story for everyone.
The Psalmist above is neither dreaming nor imagining a make-believe world. He is meditating on the “law of the Lord.” The word “law” has more than one meaning in Scripture. Here, it means “narrative or story.” In other words, the psalmist is delighting in God’s story. This story makes sense of life.
More precisely, the psalmist is meditating on the story called the Pentateuch or Torah. This story is unlike any other because it is ultimately told by the one who created the world. It’s the “true story of the world.”
This is unspeakably “good news.” One reason this story is such great news is because this particular story corroborates the reality of that unrelenting, internal desire found in your chest cavity for a meaningful life.
Not too dissimilar from dreams, we live in a world with competing, imaginary stories about the nature of reality. The various world religions express contradictory stories. Philosophical paradigms tell ever-changing stories about reality. According to Scientism, humanity is a cosmic accident living in a world without objective meaning or design.
Contrary to all these man-made stories offered in the marketplace of ideas, Scripture tells a radically different story. When David looks to the starry skies and asks, “What is man that God is mindful of him,” it is noteworthy where he finds the answer.
David does not look within his own heart. He doesn’t find meaning in life by making up his own subjective reality. As important as cosmology is, David doesn’t attempt to answer this question by observing the heavens. He doesn’t appeal to Ancient Near Eastern myths. He doesn’t resort to national traditions handed down by others.
Instead, David meditates on the narrative told by God through Moses. In this story, he discovers the truth about God, God’s plan, his place in God’s plan, and the unparalleled true story of a King who will lay down his life to redeem rebels.
Everyone must decide. Ultimately, either Macbeth is right when he says, “…life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” or, as Jesus once said about himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Prayer – Father, open our eyes to behold wonderful things from your law.