The most precious words to hear

Whose voice is most precious to you? Whose voice can you hear for a split second and already know who it is speaking? Whose familiar voice makes you smile? 

No doubt there are voices we have been missing during lockdown. Voices we would love to hear in person, out loud, rather than through a phone line or computer speaker.

Such voices are precious to us because they belong to a person. We love the words because we love the person who speaks them. And so we miss the voice and the words because we miss the person.

Well the psalmist singer of Psalm 119 had come to know and love the most precious voice of all – the voice of God. The words which come from and belong to a personal God: words ‘from your mouth’.

How has the psalmist come to hear God personally? Through ‘the law’ – that is, through God’s written word of scripture: The Bible!

And so, for the psalmist, the Bible is more precious to him than anything else. For the Bible is the words of God speaking to him. And as the words are valued because they belong to the person, so it is ultimately God Himself who is most precious to the psalmist. 

Jesus, the Son of God, is the one who truly delighted in God the Father and His word, and so, as those in Christ, we are to grow in such delight too. It is God’s voice in scripture that is to be the voice most precious to us.

Today, now, with the Spirit’s help, let us take the time to open the Word of God and delight in hearing our Master’s precious voice. 

Jenny Williams