This is a quote taken from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Meditations
on Psalm 119.” It was written 1939-40-after the time of the closure of Finkenwalde
and during the time of the “illegal underground pastorates.” [1]
This section is from
verse 20, “My soul is crushed by longing
for your demands at all times.”
“Because the yearning for God’s word is not born of the
soul, it does not pass like trembling or a frenzy of the soul in an hour or
day. It cannot be compared to the longing of the soul for a beloved person,
because this only lasts for a while, whereas the longing for God, which crushes
the soul, is “at all times.” It cannot be otherwise, when it comes over us from
God himself. It must be everlasting. It has nothing to do with a sudden surge,
with a one-time dedication of the heart to God’s word. The “at all times” is
decisive. The longing for God’s word is distinguished, not by the heat of piety,
but by the perseverance to the Word until the end.
This is precisely why it would be wrong to mistake religious
euphoria for this longing. On the contrary, what is being spoken of here is precisely
the experience of being crushed under the burden of this longing. The longing
is less likely to consist in the bliss of religious exuberance than in seeing
the triumph of the presumed rights of human beings, yet hoping for God’s right
and relying on it; of living in a foreign land and yet being unable to forget
the homeland; in misery, need, and guilt of being unable to come free of God;
of having to seek God where intellect and experience reject him; of having to
call to God when all strength sinks in death; of experiencing God’s word as the
power over our life that does not release us, even for a moment. Thus, the “at
all times” is not an exaggeration but can be understood as a reality.” (Italics mine) [2]
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