When I was a student in college, my home church called a new pastor. I experienced him first when I went home one weekend to see my parents and went to church with them on Sunday morning. (Yes, some college students actually get up and go to church!)
Howard was a tall, imposing man with a head full of blond hair and an athletic build. He was the first pastor I knew who walked into the pulpit without a scrap of a note with him while holding the sermon in his mind and soul, and he had the ability to deliver it flawlessly.
Every Sunday he would climb up into the pulpit of the church, and ask the congregation to pray with him. I can still see him clasping his hands together in front of his chest, bowing his head in silence for a moment, then quoting this verse from Psalm 19.
I’m sure I had read it or heard it before, but never in that context. This verse was his prayer before every sermon. I’ve since heard countless preachers use the verse in the same way.
Howard’s use of this verse struck a chord in me. I recall being at a multi-day Christian concert, where hundreds, maybe thousands, of people camped and worshipped and sang for days. Wandering the area around the stage one afternoon I found a sizeable rock with a couple of flat sides. I took it home, cleaned it up, and used model airplane paint to write this verse on it. That rock sat on a shelf in my college dorm room until at some point it was “tidied up out of existence.”
Today, I wish I still had it to connect me to that time in my life, that preacher who helped to shape my heart and soul, and to the Lord, who is to this day “my Rock and my Redeemer.”
But even without that stone, this verse remains a prayer for me—not only on those days when I am privileged to preach; but every day as a guiding light to help me strive to live the life God intends for me.