Body and Soul

(Psalm 119:97) O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.

Once there were two husbands who found themselves at the end of the day standing in line to purchase a dozen roses for their respective wives. Both left the shop with identical bouquets and presented them to their wives with identical economy of words, “For you, my love.”

The two wives gave identical responses to the offerings of their husbands, “Oh honey, whatever possessed you to do such a thing?” But sadly, this is where the similarities ended.

The first husband responded to his wife’s query by explaining that he did so because he well understood his husbandly duty to purchase something that he could ill afford and to present it thusly as a token of his willingness to fulfill his husbandly duties.

The second husband responded to his wife’s query by apologizing for the inadequacy of twelve long-stemmed roses to properly communicate the depth of his feelings, the intensity of his love and the extent to which he had been captured by the sublime beauty and exquisite graces of his beloved.

Needless to say, the dissimilarities only multiplied for these two husbands throughout the evening and into the night.

O, for grace to both know and love the LORD; to both understand and rejoice in His ways; to worship in the assembly more out of delight than duty; and to yield ourselves to both the form and heart of the liturgy.