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The psalms encourage me mostly because they are an honest portrayal of every emotion we have. I was astounded when I read thru them (if you take 5 a day, you go thru the entire psalms once a month). They say stuff I have NEVER heard echoed in church. Lots of praise and joy and happiness, but also lots of terror, anger, whining, fury (yeah, some of it at God!), confusion, insecurity... and raw hatred...., sometimes for God, sometimes for others, and sometimes you can't tell em apart.

In a weird way it makes me think, "ok, if David/Asaph/Solomon etc felt this way and said it to God, then I can be honest about what I am thinking/feeling." I could almost picture God chuckling saying "I knew what was in there, boy. Let's look at it and help you get this sorted out."
 
Just a thought or two about Psalms and in particular the 119th Psalm.

Most of the Book of Psalms are either songs, usually of praise, or contemplative poems.
119 is a contemplative poem that was written either by David, Ezra or Daniel. Bible scholars have varying opinions on who the author was of 119.
Each of these men lived through some really troubling times and events and had some real first hand experience in trials and tribulations. We can see their wisdom from experience in this poem but also as one who has come through it with a deep and passionate understanding of God’s unfailing love and compassion. His love for the Word of God and his dedication to remember it and live by it is a theme that is repeated over and over in 119.

Also while reading 119 remember the format of 119 is an alphabetic acrostic, meaning that the first letters of each line in Hebrew follow through the alphabet, 8 lines per letter, thus 8 lines x 22 letters in Hebrew = 176 lines. One message of this psalm is that we are to live a lifestyle that demonstrates obedience to the Lord, who is a God of order (hence the acrostic structure), not of chaos. Of course due to the number of translations Psalms have gone through to get the Bible today, the acrostic flow of this book has been lost.

Don't know if this might help you or not, just my thoughts on the subject be they deemed wrong or right in someone else's opinion.

Good luck in your pursuit of meaning of this chapter. It is worth the trouble.
 
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I currently teach Sunday School for 6th grade boys, which includes my son. Our class verses are 119:9-11. I was given those verses in high school by my mentor at the same church. I had a poster made up with the scripture and it’s hanging in our classroom. I plan to move up with these boys at least for a couple years. I hope they hold these three verses in the hearts for the rest of their lives and pass them along to their sons.
 
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Part of the problem is that American churches are preaching only from the New Testament and only Jesus Christ, who is the son of God, not God himself. They leave out the Old and seem to put God in second place. How many times have you heard "in Jesus' name we pray..." versus old style "thanks be to God..."?
 
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