Wisdom, Insight, and Understanding

I have spent the last few weeks pouring over Psalm 119. Marinating in it, you could say, and it has been really good for me. All throughout the chapter, the author is seeking out God's precepts and laws, wanting to know them more and love them more, and promising that he will not forget them. God's laws are true and good and right! There is a little chunk of a few verses that really stuck out to me the other day. They talk about gaining wisdom, insight, and understanding, and who doesn't want more of that?

Psalm 119: 97-100, & 103-104:
   "Oh, how I love Your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on Your statutes. I have more understanding that the elders, for I obey Your precepts. 
   How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! I gain understanding from Your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path."

I have tried, in my life over the years, to find what it is that would really make me steadfast in my faith. I thought there must be something that would be stronger than my own will to keep me on the right path, seeking God and doing His will. My failure always in this was that I thought it must be in reading the Bible, or praying, or whatever else I could come up with, if I could just get it right. In these verses, and all through Psalm 119 lies my answer. It's not just reading the Bible, or praying, because those things can easily fall out of habit. In the course of the last few weeks I have realized that it is the seeking out His precepts and laws, and praying them into my heart, and asking Him to make me steadfast that is my answer. I am relying on His staying power, and not mine. 

Psalm 119: 34-38
  "Give me understanding and I will obey Your law.... Direct me in the path of Your commands.... Turn my heart to Your statutes.... Turn my eyes away from (me)... Fulfill Your promise to Your servant."

I wasn't totally missing the truth, because I have experienced God in deeper ways than some people ever will. But, it's like I was skirting around the truth. I thought it was still up to me and my power to be steadfast in my faith, and I was always failing. It is Him, and His power. Only and ever.