Prayer for Illumination

Yesterday we saw the psalmist praying for favor, then, in verse 18, he prays for illumination. “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” We will never know the truth of God’s law until He opens our eyes. This has been the theme of every stanza:

verse 7, “I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules,”

verse 12, “Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes!”

We will see it again and again…it’s the truth of Scripture…there are wondrous things in God’s Word and we need His Spirit to see them. We are by nature blind to them, we are deaf to them, but the Spirit opens our eyes, our ears, and our hearts, and we see…it is Numbers 22 when Balaam’s donkey sees the angel, but he doesn’t, and verse 31 says, “Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way.”

It is 2 Kings 6:17, “Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.’ So, the LORD opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

It’s Saul on the way to Damascus—leaving physically blind for a while but seeing Jesus as the only way. If you are saved it is because Jesus opened your eyes, and if you and I are to understand a living and active book we must have Him open our eyes to the wondrous things that are there. They are wondrous because they reveal a wondrous God. Make it your daily prayer—O God, “open my eyes that I may behold the wondrous things out of your Law!”

There will be times when all seems dark and growing darker…I took this picture the other night because I just liked the way the leaves looked against the sky, but as I kept looking I noticed, it’s hard to see in the picture unless you blow it up, that beyond the darkness was the North Star. The Word of God is our North Star…keep looking toward it!