Week 7 Friday — Walking with the Word
Friday: שׁ Shin — Great Peace Have Those Who Love Your Law - Psalm 119:161-168
Friday: שׁ Shin — Great Peace Have Those Who Love Your Law - Psalm 119:161-168
Introduction
Something has shifted.
The enemies are still there. If anything they have grown more formidable — it is no longer just oppressors and adversaries. Now it is princes. Powerful people with the authority and the means to make life very difficult for the psalmist. The external situation has not improved. By any visible measure it has gotten worse.
And yet.
“My heart stands in awe of your words.”
Not fear of the princes. Awe of the Word. Something has happened in the psalmist across this week of desperate, whole-heart, pre-dawn crying that the princes cannot touch and the darkness cannot undo. He has been broken down and taken in — the teeth of Shin doing their slow, consuming work — and what has emerged on the other side is not more urgency. It is wonder. Joy. Peace.
Not small peace. Not situational peace that holds only as long as circumstances cooperate. Great peace. The kind that surpasses explanation. The kind that makes no sense from the outside looking in. The kind that can look at princes and persecution and say — without performance, without pretending — my heart stands in awe of Your words, and nothing you can do to me changes that.
This is the fruit of everything the series has been building toward. Not arrival. Not the absence of enemies. But a peace so deeply rooted in love for God’s Word that nothing — nothing — can make it stumble.
We need this.
Scripture
¹⁶¹ Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words. ¹⁶² I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil. ¹⁶³ I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law. ¹⁶⁴ Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules. ¹⁶⁵ Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble. ¹⁶⁶ I hope for your salvation, O LORD, and I do your commandments. ¹⁶⁷ My soul keeps your testimonies; I love them exceedingly. ¹⁶⁸ I keep your precepts and testimonies, for all my ways are before you.
— Psalm 119:161-168 (ESV)
Reflection
Awe Instead of Fear
The stanza opens with a contrast that should stop us: “Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words” (v. 161). Princes. Not just the usual oppressors and adversaries — people with real power, real authority, real ability to make the psalmist’s life genuinely difficult. The threat has escalated. The pressure has increased. And the psalmist’s response is not a more desperate cry, not a more urgent appeal, not another pre-dawn vigil.
It is awe.
Awe of God’s Word — not fear of the princes. And that is not a small thing. Fear and awe cannot fully occupy the same heart at the same time. When awe of God’s Word fills the psalmist, fear of what princes can do simply has less room. Not because the threat isn’t real. Not because he is pretending the powerful people aren’t there. But because something larger has taken up residence in him — something the princes didn’t put there and cannot take away.
Shin means teeth — sharp, consuming, that which breaks down and takes in. This is the letter of digestion, of something being thoroughly processed until it becomes part of you. The psalmist has been taking in God’s Word across the entire journey of this psalm — meditating all the day, rising before dawn, crying through the night watches with it as his only hope. And what the Word has done in him, slowly and faithfully, is replace fear with awe. You cannot spend a lifetime taking in God’s Word without it consuming the things that once consumed you.
The princes are still there. The awe is greater.
Rejoicing Like Found Treasure
Then comes the turn nobody expects after a week of desperate crying: “I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil” (v. 162). Joy. Not relief — joy. Not the quiet settling of someone whose prayer has finally been answered, but the explosive delight of a soldier who stumbles onto the enemy’s treasure in the middle of battle. Unexpected. Overwhelming. Completely disproportionate to the circumstances.
This is not earned joy. It is discovered joy. The Word has been there all along — the same Word he has loved above gold and honey and meditated on through every season of this psalm. But something about the week of desperation, the whole-heart crying, the pre-dawn darkness — something about having been pressed to the very bottom of his own resources — has made him see it fresh. Desperation has a way of stripping away everything we have been leaning on besides God, and what remains when everything else is gone is the treasure we forgot we had.
The psalmist didn’t find something new. He found what was always there — with new eyes. The eyes of someone who has just come through the darkness and discovered that the Word that accompanied him through it is more valuable than he realized when the sun was still up. Joy like found treasure. That is what a week of wholehearted desperation can produce in a soul that has not let go.
Great Peace — Nothing Can Make Them Stumble
And then the psalmist says something that may be the most sweeping promise in the entire psalm: “Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble” (v. 165). Great peace. Not adequate peace. Not peace that holds when circumstances cooperate. Great peace — the kind that surpasses explanation, that makes no sense from the outside looking in, that can coexist with princes and persecution and pre-dawn darkness and still be called great.
And the source of it is not a feeling or an experience or a resolved situation. It is love. Great peace have those who love your law. The psalmist has been building toward this declaration across 165 verses. Every meditation, every whole-heart cry, every declaration of love above gold and honey — all of it has been cultivating the love that produces this peace. Not the peace of someone who has no enemies. The peace of someone whose love for God’s Word runs deeper than any enemy can reach.
Nothing can make them stumble. Not the diagnosis, the relationship that is fracturing, the financial pressure, the prodigal who hasn’t come home, the darkness before dawn. The one who loves God’s law is not standing on circumstances — they are standing on something that doesn’t move. And from that foundation, stumbling is not the inevitable outcome of difficulty. It is the thing that difficulty cannot produce in someone rooted this deep.
This is the fruit of everything the series has been building. Not the absence of trial. Not the resolution of every desperate cry. But a peace so deeply rooted in love for God’s Word that the ground beneath it never shifts — and a joy that keeps breaking out like found treasure no matter what the princes are doing.
Awe instead of fear. Joy in the middle of battle. Great peace that nothing can shake.
We needed this.
“Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.” — This is the way.
Prayer Prompt
Lord, I confess that I have let the princes in. The diagnosis, the relationship that is fracturing, the financial pressure, the prodigal who hasn’t come home — I have given them more room in my heart than they deserve. I have let fear crowd out awe. I have let what is pressing against me become larger in my vision than what You have spoken. Forgive me for that.
Today I want to stand where the psalmist stood. Not pretending the pressure isn’t real — it is real. Not pretending to a peace I haven’t yet found. But choosing, deliberately and against the grain of everything my circumstances are telling me, to let awe of Your Word be larger than fear of what is coming against me. The princes are still there. Let the awe be greater.
And Lord — I ask for the joy. The found-treasure joy that breaks out unexpectedly in the middle of battle. I know it has been there all along. I know Your Word has been accompanying me through every dark season of this journey, more valuable than I realized when the sun was still up. Open my eyes to see it fresh today — not as something I have to manufacture but as something I keep discovering is already there. Richer than I remembered. More than enough.
Give me the great peace that You have promised to those who love Your law. Not the peace that requires circumstances to cooperate. Not the peace that holds only until the next difficulty arrives. The great peace — the kind that runs deeper than anything pressing in, the kind rooted in love for Your Word that has been growing quietly across every season of this psalm and this series.
Nothing can make me stumble. Not because I am strong. Because I am standing on something that doesn’t move. Keep me there today. Amen.
Response
Awe Instead of Fear: The psalmist didn’t pretend the princes weren’t there — he simply let awe of God’s Word become larger than fear of what they could do. What is your prince today? The diagnosis, the relationship that is fracturing, the financial pressure, the prodigal who hasn’t come home? Name it honestly — God is not put off by your honesty. Then open God’s Word and read until something produces awe. Not a formula — a moment of genuine wonder at what God has said. Let the awe have more room than the fear today. Even just a little more. That is enough to start.
Rejoicing Like Found Treasure: The psalmist’s joy wasn’t earned — it was discovered. The Word had been there all along, but the week of desperation had given him new eyes to see it. Think back over this week — Monday’s whole-heart cry, Tuesday’s persistent widow, Wednesday’s summit, Thursday’s truth that endures. Where did something land differently than you expected? Where did God’s Word surprise you — show up richer or more personal than you anticipated? Write it down. That is your found treasure. That is the spoil from the battle. Don’t let the week end without naming it. Then share it with a friend — or someone still in the dark place.
Great Peace — Nothing Can Make Them Stumble: Great peace isn’t the absence of difficulty — it’s a rootedness in love for God’s Word that difficulty cannot reach. Is the peace you are carrying today great peace or managed peace — holding on only as long as circumstances cooperate? Ask God to deepen the root rather than calm the storm. Then do this: today read a favorite passage outside your planned devotion. Ask yourself why you are drawn to it and what feeds you there. If nothing comes to mind try John 15 or John 16:19-33. Great peace grows from exactly that kind of love — unhurried, unscheduled, just you and the Word and a heart that keeps coming back.
To read all the posts in this devotional series, visit: Walking with the Word — Psalm 119
© Steve Peschke / This Is The Way