Psalm 119:96 Official Story

Google knows everything.

A friend was talking about a tree in Africa known as the miracle tree because every part of it, from the bark to the leaves to the seeds, has some sort of practical or medicinal use. While he was describing it to a group of us, I took out my phone and Googled Africa miracle tree. I discovered moringa is the actual name of the tree. I passed around the phone so my friends could see a picture of the tree with its unusual-looking pods.

One of my friends chuckled, saying, "And there's Tim.. always straight to his phone for the answers." He finds it humorous that I, the oldest by far among our group of friends, am always the first to turn to the internet for detailed information.

I find it startling that people would sit and discuss a topic at length, sometimes even debating the details, pooling their combined lack of knowledge, and never think to turn to Google and find the answers.

Google is my default for information and obscure details, especially as my aging brain cells lose contact with my stored memories of much of what I've learned over my 60-plus years. It would be great if technology were advanced enough to just implant Google and all its indexing system directly into my brain.

To all perfection I see a limit;
but your commands are boundless.

Psalm 119:96

For life and godliness, the Word is my default. God knows everything and He's given us His Word as our access point to that knowledge.

The Hebrew term David uses in this verse for the scriptures is mizvah, translated here as commands. It carries the idea of authority, that the one who gave this command has unquestioned authority to make commands, thus lending that personal authority to the command itself.

If God's Word has that kind of authority, why shouldn't it be our default when we want to know how to conduct ourselves on the 1 road of life?

It should be so much our default that we move beyond using the scriptures as though they are God's Google. We're under-valuing the mizvah if we treat it only as a search engine to find the question of the moment or today's problem.

The full value of the Word comes from reading it continually, diving into it, wallowing in it, devouring it. I want to get the Lord's commands into me so deeply that I begin to think like God thinks. Then I'll also act like He acts and talk like He talks.

And then I'll be able to come up with those answers to the problem of the moment without having to search for them. I know God's heart on the topic because His Story is engraved on my heart. My aging brain may not be able to recall the exact scripture reference on a topic, but my heart knows what God has said and what He has done and how He has touched my own heart.

Resolve to dive deeply into the Word in the days and weeks and year ahead.