2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (NIV)
This weekend it was “Achy Breaky Heart”. When our kids were younger it was Barney the purple dinosarus' “I love you” song. You know what I’m talking about. Those annoying tunes that get in your head, looping over and over again until you catch yourself caught in the trap of humming along. Aggravating as that can be, though, it does have its positive counterpart. The “alphabet song” lays the foundations for reading and writing. Wrinkled golden-agers still tear up to the spiritual primer, “Jesus loves me.” It’s a simple way of teaching eternal truths. Contrasting Psalm 1:1 with verse 2, the psalmist tells us how the godly should spend his days. It includes meditating on the law of the Lord, which, if we’re bluntly honest, doesn’t really sound too exciting. It dredges up the image of smoking incense, sitar music, squatting sages and chanting. Or at best, we see it as a chore, something on our “honey-do list”. We know we ought to do it and should do it. It’s good for us like a bitter medicine, but we’d really rather not have to take it. Of course, the problem is that we have the incorrect ideas both about what law means and what it is to meditate. The law as it is used here isn’t the Torah or even the Old Testament scriptures. It refers to instruction, or revelation, from God. It isn’t limited to God’s written Word, but includes his everyday communication with us. Simply put, the law is God – all that he is and all that he wants for us, his children. The Hebrew word for meditate (hagah) alludes to animal sounds or moaning. It means to murmur or mutter. It captures the way God’s word was communicated and repeated orally from generation to generation before his written word was widely available. So he who delights in the Lord has the refrain of God’s love song playing in his head all day and all night. No offense to Barney or Billy Ray, but now that’s a tune I can live with.
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