The earth, O LORD, is full of your steadfast love;
teach me your statutes!

Psalm 119:64 ESV

Now that we come to the end of this stanza, let us briefly take one last glance at how it is structured. The first half, verses 57-60, focused on the psalmist’s resolution to obey God’s law, while the second half, verses 61-64, focuses on that resolve in relation to what is around him. In verse 61, he declared that the wicked’s snares would not make him forget God’s law. In verse 62, he revealed his midnight meditation apart from the busyness of the day. Verse 63 made known his companionship to God’s people, those who fear God and keep His commandments. Now the psalmist exults that the whole earth declares to him the steadfast love of God.

The lover of God’s Word ought also to be a lover of God’s world, for both are the words of His mouth. As theologians have long noted, both are forms of revelation. Just as we can learn something about an artist from his or her works, so we can learn about God from the world that He has made. Specifically, the psalmist delights that the earth is filled with God’s steadfast love.

Given many of the broken and sorrowful aspects of the world, we may wonder how the psalmist sees God’s steadfast love all around him. Yet the earth is indeed full of God’s steadfast love. For all the diseases and disasters in the world, oxygen still exists to fill our lungs, water still quenches thirst, and food still sprouts from the ground for us to eat. Even more than that, the sun still keeps us warm (without scorching everything to dust, by the way), trees still give shade, and flowers still smell delightful. Of course, there is no end to the lists that we could make. Each day we are bombarded by millions of blessings, if only we have eyes to see them.

Yet for all of the wonders of the world around us and for all that it testifies to us about the Creator, we still need more. We still need a fuller revelation. Thus, even the beauties of the earth, ultimately turn the psalmist’s heart back to the Scriptures. Upon seeing the steadfast love of God in each day’s sunrise and sunset, he cries out, “Teach me your statutes!” Let this be a known to all who use the beauty of being in nature as an excuse to neglect reading God’s Word: properly viewing God in nature will inevitably create a hunger to know Him more in His Word.