The impetus for a more careful study of the 119th Psalm came thirty years ago when my first pastor-teacher-friend reached a series of messages on this multifaceted gem from God's Word. Ever since that time, the Lord has providentially brought into my life occasions for plumbing the depths of its 176 verses. Some of these avenues of Divine confrontation and comfort have included two life-threatening thoracic surgeries accompanied by discomforting hospital stays for a total of nearly eight months, the periodic pangs of personal criticisms and attacks, and the many pressures which attend a commitment to the ministry of ""the whole counsel of God."" Consequently, there have been ample opportunities to empathize deeply with the psalmist when he said, ""It was good for me that I was afflicted, in order that I might learn Your statutes"" (v. 71). (from the Preface)
