“I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You.” (Psalm 119:11)
I have written these words in the margin of my Bible beside the verse above: “Absorbed into thought and translated into action”. They are powerful! We must first plan and then act. (It’s sort of like making a list before we go to the grocery store so that we don’t buy things we don’t want or need.) If we are to avoid sin, we need to know what God says about it, take it into our heart and then apply His will to our behavior.
When my family lived in Japan as missionaries, I conspicuously stood out in a crowd with my long blonde hair. Many people were intrigued by hair the color of mine. When I went to a beauty shop for a hair cut, it was not unusual for the stylist to sweep up the cut strands and keep them! My hair not only was a strange color, it had a much different texture than most Asian hair. The same was true of my brother’s red hair. I remember a picture at a park once, where there were several hands touching his head, just curious to see what red hair felt like! When I attended night school in Tokyo, I would often wear a black head scarf, so not to draw attention. In essence, I was hiding my hair.
Deuteronomy 6:6-9, says “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” Deliberate action! When we keep the Word in our hearts, we are more likely to live in pleasing obedience to the Lord! Even when we know how God feels about sin, we still often fail miserably, and sometimes intentionally. Praise God that our full confession and repentance restores us to a rightful place in God’s eyes, where nothing is hidden from Him. It is where we can safely “dwell in the shelter of the Most High, and abide in the shadow of the Almighty”. (Psalm 91:1)