I have put my hope in Your Word.

So...needless to say...this time in my life is a little interesting. The last month or so of emotional downers have left me a little drained. My community group has been doing Beth Moore's Esther bible study this summer and it has been wonderful, but I found myself longing for some less structured time in the Word. I've been slowly reading through the Psalms when I'm on breaks from structured bible studies. I was reading in Psalm 119 the other day and was just really hit with what my love of God's Word should look like. All through the psalm it talks about his love for the Word and how it sustains him. Here's just a sampling:

- I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your Word. (vs 16)

- My soul faints with longing for your salvation, but I have put my hope in your Word. (vs 81)

- Your Word, O LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. (vs 89)

- Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. (vs 97)

- How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (vs 103)

- Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (vs 105)

- Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart. (vs 111)

- You are my refuge and my shield, I have put my hope in your Word. (vs 114)

- The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. (vs 130)

I long to feel that way about God's Word. I think there are times in life when studying it has been joyful for me, but it has never been the thing I would stake my hope on or the thing I never neglect. I tend to get in a box-checking rut of just opening it every day because I am supposed to and forget the kind of life that can be found there. It's my desire that I would move out of seeing the Bible as a text book and a requirement and seeing as God's words to me, a help in my time of trouble, the place where I can be replinished when I am run down after a month like I have just had, and the words in which I can put all of my hope in.