Psalm 119:92 | “If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.”

The psalmist looks back on his suffering and recognizes a stunning truth. The only reason he survived the weight of his affliction was because he delighted in the law of the Lord. God’s word was not a cold duty to him. It was his joy, his meditation, his very breath of life. When every earthly support gave way, Scripture became the hand that held him fast. Without it he admits he would have perished. Spurgeon wisely describes the psalmist’s experience. “When worn with pain until the brain has become dazed and the reason well nigh extinguished, a sweet text has whispered to us its heart cheering assurance, and our poor struggling mind has reposed upon the bosom of God.”  Matthew Henry adds, “His converse with God’s law, and his meditations on it, were his delightful entertainment in solitude and sorrow. A Bible is a pleasant companion at any time if we please.” Scripture is not only our guide in obedience, it is a companion that never leaves us, even when others cannot begin to imagine the depths of our trouble. May we learn to delight in God’s law until it becomes for us what it was for the psalmist, not only a lamp to our path, but the very means by which God keeps us alive.