Psalm 119:20

"I am overwhelmed continually with a desire for your laws."

I feel overwhelmed from time to time. Sometimes it's a bad version of being overwhelmed-- like when I am swamped at work. Other times, it's a good version of being overwhelmed-- like when God's goodness and blessings pour over my life. Sometimes it's a nervous version of being overwhelmed-- like when I'm approaching the start of a new small group semester.

Honestly, I don't know that I can ever pinpoint a time that I was overwhelmed with a desire for God's laws. Yet the author of this Psalm says that he is continually overwhelmed with that desire. The NIV says "my soul is consumed with longing."

Throughout this Psalm, the writer seems to be claiming to have certain thoughts/emotions/reactions and then asking God to give him those very thoughts/emotions/reactions that he claims to possess. I think that's how thing typically work. We state in faith our love for God, but at the same time, we must ask him to help us love him the way that he desires to be loved. It's like the man in Mark 9 who said, "I believe; help me in my unbelief." Christianity if a cycle of stating what we believe in faith and then believing in faith that God will get us to where he wants us to go and into being what he wants us to be.