Psalm 119:14
In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. Psalm 119:14
After becoming a Christian, I have seen how my life has been rich and abundant. But even when I would say that, others would be quick to correct me, thinking that I was referring to money. It was a very comical juxtaposition (I don’t often use that term).
I was not talking at all about money, and now someone is correcting me to ensure that I am not talking about money. I want to somehow explain that I knew exactly what I meant until they confused it with their own bias that I was not talking about in the first place.
Ugh, this is our culture today. Even when I am not talking about money, people assume otherwise and are quick to admit their own guilt. To put this in perspective, I have a saying I use in counseling. It goes like this: “If a drunk is not thinking about drinking, he is thinking about drinking.”
Do you see the insanity in that?
So back to the point of this verse, “In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.” All riches include relationships, comfort, contentment, peace, beauty, all the things in God’s economy that bring us pleasure and comfort this side of eternity. The psalmist is not just talking about money or affluence.
Perhaps you have influence in your local middle to lower class neighborhood. The psalmist is warning you to be careful in where you find your delight. What if you are awesome at purchasing vintage clothes at a local thrift shop for pennies. God is saying, his testimonies are better. The psalmist is pressing in on a truth about God’s economy that defies culture, social class, age, race, gender and all other ways of grouping individuals. The psalmist is saying, “God’s testimonies” are better than anything this world has to offer.
Everything we experience today is a pointer, a sign post pointing to a better life in eternity. New heaven, new earth, new body, a banquet feast, a better marriage between the ultimate bridegroom and his bride, a better family, the better helper, the better husband, the better life with Jesus.
We say that Jesus came to give us eternal life. Another way of saying this is Jesus came to give us everything that death cannot take away. That is why we delight in his testimonies more than anything else, even “all riches”.
