“Of Pecan Banana Pancakes and the Longing to Obey God’s Commandments”
I like to see connections between things that may not seem to be connected. For example, take my study and meditation on Psalm 119, and connect it with my sweetheart teaching me to cook pecan banana pancakes.
I was thinking about the longing, the intense desire to obey God’s commandments, as reflected in Psalm 119. Psalm 119 is very long. In fact, it is the longest chapter in the Bible, at least in terms of verses. Many folks think of it as very long and very repetitious. I used to regard it that way in the past.
I have changed my mind. Long? Yes. Boring? Most definitely not!
Psalm 119 certainly uses the same format throughout. It is an acrostic. Each section of eight verses starts with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Since there are 22 letters in the Hebrew language, the psalm contains 176 verses. (8 x 22=176.)
Furthermore, the psalm uses many of the same words throughout. However, it combines them in somewhat different manners from section to section.
But the thing that makes me love Psalm 119 the most, is the sheer longing, joy, and delight that the psalmist expresses. And this longing, joy, delight—and yes, even love—are directed toward God’s Law, God’s commands, God’s judgments.
Now, I don’t generally love commands. I may obey them (sometimes). I may even see that they have a point (occasionally). But loving, delighting and rejoicing in them, loving them? No, I don’t think so!
And yet, the psalmist did long, delight in, rejoice in, and love them.
Hummm . . .
So, while I was meditating on this, my wife called me down for breakfast. She is teaching me to cook healthy, nutritious, and (hopefully) tasty things. This morning, we were working on pecan banana pancakes. She had already prepared the ingredients when I came down. Fortunately, she stayed with me, giving me counsel about how to put the lid on the blender properly. (This prevented my having to spend half-an-hour cleaning pancake batter off the kitchen ceiling.)
She also flagged me down when I was about to dump the baking powder in with the moist ingredients before I had mixed them up properly. This kept parts of the pancakes from being flat as a . . . well, . . . as flat as a pancake, and other parts of the pancakes looking like they might have a thyroid problem.
In short, my wife gave me guidance and commands when needed, and encouragement whenever possible.
And the pancakes turned out quite nicely. In fact, they were very tasty! This was due, in large part to my wife’s commands.
Perhaps the psalmist of Psalm 119 realized that the divine chef was in the kitchen with him, giving him commands to help his life to turn out well. Perhaps God’s commands help life to turn out better and tastier than it would if we ignored God’s commands. Maybe I (maybe we) could come to love God’s commands if I (we) realized that God’s commands really are for our own good. Maybe we can’t really achieve good outcomes without a good, godly process.
And maybe, someday, we will come to long for, delight and rejoice in, and love the process. Maybe that is what Heaven is.
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