Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 38-44.

I’m going to write today about a theme which I see in Psalm 39 and 40.  I see them as saying something similar to what James wrote in the third chapter of his letter.  James says, “Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect,…”  Here the psalmist says that he tried to keep from sinning in what he said by saying nothing, but when he did that a fire burned within him becoming hotter until he could keep silent no longer.  He found himself unable to keep silent and needed to cry out to God.  Then in psalm 40, he writes that he waited patiently for God and God rescued him.  Now he needs to speak of God’s wondrous acts which are so numerous that even with days unnumbered he could not speak of them all.  He would not hide God’s righteousness in his heart, rather he would proclaim it to anyone who would listen.  Note, he was not saying it was his righteousness he needed to proclaim.  He needed to proclaim God’s righteousness.  In the same way, we must not conceal God’s love and faithfulness.  We must speak it aloud to any who will listen.  In many ways that is the answer to James’ comments about how hard it is to control our tongues, to control the words we speak.  If we use our words to proclaim God’s love we will not have words to speak badly about others, we will not be able to speak words which bring hurt to our fellow humans.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.