Psalm 119:149

In today’s verse of Psalm 119 we encounter the fourth specific reference made by the psalmist in this octave to his prayers.

Psalms 119:149  Hear my voice according unto thy lovingkindness: O LORD, quicken me according to thy judgment.

In this prayer the psalmist brings two requests before the Lord.  He asks the Lord to hear him and He asks the Lord to quicken him.

Let’s consider the first request:  Hear my voice.  Although we can pray in our hearts without uttering a sound, it is good to do as the psalmist and pray aloud with our voices.  This assists in focusing our thoughts on what we are praying.  If you are reading something and having trouble concentrating on it, you might try reading it aloud as this will help to capture your attention.  When I meditate, I often speak out loud what I am thinking.  I usually preach my sermons to myself before I preach them to the congregation.  A person might think me crazy for doing so, but it works for me.  At least I have Scripture for doing this when I pray.  If it works there, why not use this tool in meditation?

Now the psalmist pled with God to hear him according unto His lovingkindness.

Lovingkindness - Affectionate tenderness and consideration; kindness arising from a deep personal love, as the active love of God for his creatures.

If God’s hears us, it is because He deeply loves us.  And this love moved Him to action in that He gave His only begotten Son to take away our sins and iniquities. 

1 John 4:10  Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Without this removal of our sins, the Lord would not hear our prayers at all.

Isaiah 59:1  Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

2  But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Therefore, it is because of the His lovingkindness shown in the forgiveness of our sins that God hears us when we pray.  This explains why David pled the lovingkindness of God when He begged God to forgive him for the sins he committed in his adulterous affair with Bathsheba.

Psalms 51:1  (To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.) Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

When the Lord deals with us, we want Him to keep His lovingkindnesses in mind rather than our sins, especially the sins we committed in the folly and passion of youth which haunt us all.

Psalms 25:6  Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.

7  Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD.

If the Lord will but remember His lovingkindnesses instead of our sins, then we shall have an audience with Him when we pray.  And, oh, how we need that audience!

Then comes the second request:  O LORD, quicken me.  We have come across this request before in this psalm.  That it is repeated by the psalmist indicates that he repeatedly needed to be revived and stirred up.  And is not that the case with us?  We too easily become lax and lethargic in our spiritual life.  Bible reading and prayer become matters of routine rather than real communion with God.  Perhaps our mind wanders a lot in church and we just don’t get that much from the sermon.  If such is the case, we need to be quickened. And the extent to which the psalmist sensed he needed quickening is reflected in the expression O.  As we have noted before, the interjection O expresses emotion.  Just be thankful you do not become so lax that you are not even concerned about it.  That is dangerous!

Note that the psalmist begged the Lord to quicken him according to His judgment.  He left it with the Lord to judge, to decide when and by what means He would quicken him.  Sometimes instead of pumping us up, the Lord presses us down.  “The LORD…bringeth low, and lifteth up” (1Samuel 2:7).  In the Lord’s mysterious ways sometimes the way up is down.  But that turn downward may be just what we need to quicken us.  Some of our most fervent prayers arise from our most desperate circumstances.  We draw close to the Lord in such times because there is nowhere else to go and no other than can deliver us.  That prolonged illness, that crash of an investment, that failure of a business, that loss of a loved one, that prodigal son, or whatever other adversity we could name might be just the thing whereby the Lord quickens us.  It exercises our faith and brings out the best in us to the glory of God, and the conversion and edification of others.  It is ours to ask.  It is God’s to decide how He will answer because He is the Judge.  And His judgment is always just.