Fresh eyes

‘But his delight is in the Law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night.’ Psalm 1 v 2

From Helen Machell

So often I have read the psalms and been completely baffled about what they are trying to say, what they mean and how they apply to us right now. Each psalm was written at the time for a certain reason, a certain situation that the writer (usually David) was in. It was these differences, along with the language (I’m definitely a numbers lady!), that have always been a barrier to me really understanding what was happening. So unless someone else explained it to me or it is in a song, I was lost!!

So when I was thinking about what the mum’s Bible study, (that usually meets weekly with a crèche, now ‘meeting’ online) should look at together, I found it rather odd that I was drawn to the psalms. Never one to avoid a challenge (and it seemed like a good place to start!), I started to look into how this might work.

The Bible I use most frequently has a great introductory section to each book, so after reading this I worked through a plan to take one psalm from each one of the mini ‘books’ each week and ask 4 questions. Zoom is exhausting at the best of times and as we all have children (mostly under 10), concentration doesn’t last long. But we make those minutes count! Reading Psalm 1, in our first session, there were many things to learn. It explains the two roads you can take: one of the faithful person, one of the faithless. We might long that our lives would be like the faithful person, to be by living waters, yielding fruit and prospering in whatever we do, but in the study we soon realised that, even though Jesus’ death has made us righteous, we live more like the faithless person. We don’t study God’s Word day and night and we definitely get caught up with the way of sinners (because that is what we are) BUT we are certainly heading in the right direction and prayerfully becoming more like the righteous person that the Lord has made us and that he watches over. 

After week 3 (Psalms 1, 61 and 84 in case you want to read them), I am really learning to love the psalms in a way that I never thought I would. Thinking that I would find it hard and that ‘I never manage to get those’ has blocked me from finding some amazing challenges, encouragements and truth about God. I’ve also come to know that just because I thought something or did something a certain way before, doesn’t mean that it will be the same this time round. Is there a part of the Bible you have found hard to read or understand before? Why not give it a go again looking at it with fresh eyes?