Psalm 19v14 ^“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer”

Last Sunday we looked at the passage in James 3 concerning both the power and inconsistency of our tongues. (If you were not there, you can listen  tongue-talk-here  ). Our inconsistency is expressed: “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness … my brothers, this should not be.” This is a challenge: How do we speak of our fellow human-beings?

When we come to Psalm 19v14 (above), we can be very religious in our application and think of our “times with God”, but I think a wider context is merited. Immediately before this verse, the Psalmist is concerned about his sin, “Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant from wilful sins; may they not rule over me.” (v12/13). The application is not so much in our “religious times”, but in the whole of life. I think we can therefore interpret the prayer of Psalm 19 in the light of James: “May the words of my mouth with regards to my fellow human-beings, and the meditations of my heart with regards to my fellow human-beings, be pleasing to you, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

Now that is a challenge! But this is a desire and a prayer – an Anglican response would be “with God’s help we will.” And indeed, He will help as we will!

With much blessing,

Roland