Tag: walk of faith

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Verses 105-112

Your word is a lamp to my feet

And a light for my path.

God’s Word is both the path and the light to see the path – the way, the truth and the light, in fact.  Light for planting our feet – ie for making decisions – not that he controls where we tread but that he gives light to us to choose where to tread.  Light like this is strong, but silent.  We’re not meant to walk in the dark – the Word should be showing us the way clearly.

I have taken an oath and confirmed it,

That I will follow your righteous laws.

Double charge!  How do we confirm our promises to God – do we back them up with sacrifice or gift?  A vow to follow this new path – the long path!  Baptism is such a time of dedication and vow and confirmation.

I have suffered much,

Preserve my life, O Lord, according to your word.

Some pains – like blisters – are simply the result of walking so far for so long.  Then there are attacks from enemies, but God’s promise is to defend and protect his pilgrims.

Accept, O Lord, the willing praise of my mouth,

And teach me your laws.

Teach me as I praise – after I praise – and only willing praise counts!

Though I constantly take my life in my hands,

I will not forget your law.

I will not focus on my own preservation or the threat to me.  I will have to willingly forget myself so that I can concentrate on the truth of your word – and I would have to willingly forget you, God, to think of myself after this praise.

The wicked have set a snare for me,

But I have not strayed from your statutes.

They have – they will have.  It’s certain.  But it doesn’t just affect me.  Everyone set on this path has these challenges.

Your statutes are my heritage for ever;

They are the joy of my heart.

Praise Him!  What an heirloom to receive from previous generations.  No wonder I am glad.  All of the people of my house – all the pleasure within me is because of your law.  Gladness and deep satisfaction has only ever come to me through your good law of forgiveness, freedom, righteousness and truth.

My heart is set on keeping your decrees

To the very end.

My heart is now set.  My decisions are made, my bag packed, emotions decided, will submitted, spirit conquered.  To the very end I will walk after you, O Lord, because of joy – the joy of inheriting your word!

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Verses 97-104

Oh, how I love your law!

I meditate on it all day long.

Certainly scripture is meaning more to me – but so is his word by the Spirit.  This Psalm has been constantly in my head this weekend – the words and their lessons.  A good way to be.  Oh that my ways were steadfast – that I thought on God’s word through my working day! [I wrote this in April 2014.  It’s far too easy to condemn ourselves for ‘not reading Scripture enough’.  That feeling alone is a symptom of something disconnected in our Spirits.  I think it is and always will be a struggle to tear our minds off earthly things and truly concentrate on the Word, and because we remember the effects of studying it much more than the joy of studying and learning the word, we stop ourselves from falling in love with Scripture.  So – one of our collective priorities must be to talk about God’s word with excitement and love – the same way we gush to one another when we fall in love!]

Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,

For they are ever with me.

Able to see further, in time and space, and able to judge what is important – not just of people, but I can out-do and out-think temptation when God’s command is close to me.

I have more insight than all my teachers,

For I meditate on your statutes.

Insight – knowledge of God’s will and way arising from the spirit within each of us.  It develops with the dwelling – ruminating – Eugene Petersen would say ‘gnawing’.

I have more understanding than the elders,

For I obey your precepts.

Understanding in the mind, born of experience, develops particularly as a result of obedient experience.  This is God’s intention in giving us his commands – that we would understand him.

I have kept my feet from every evil path

So that I might obey your word.

Here is another direct walking parable.  There are paths that are evil to our intention and purpose, like Christian’s path in the Pilgrim’s Progress.  Because we long to follow God’s purpose at the great scale – to finish the race and complete the walk – we must be singleminded and turn down other distractions.  Even if not immoral, they can be evil to us if they lead us off the path.

I have not departed from our laws,

For you yourself have taught me.

So at no time have I been able to escape the effect of God’s law and his justice, since he himself has been actively engaged in my education.

How sweet are your words to my taste,

Sweeter than honey to my mouth.

Yet we have to chew to get the sweetness!  Looking at food, we never really remember how good it tastes.  God’s word is sweet remaining in our mouths, too.

I get understanding from your precepts;

Therefore I hate every wrong path.

The strength of my reaction to the paths and ways around me, splitting off from my route, is a result of my mind’s new openness to God’s word and my dwelling in his teaching.  If I continue to learn by making myself available to God, my mind will be even better able to warn me from bad paths, and more able to actually decide against them.  To have a pliable will and insight to see – that is freedom to walk wherever you want!

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Verses 81-88

My soul faints with longing for your salvation,

But I have put my hope in your word.

That internal longing?  That yearning after fulfillment of God’s promises?  That’s the soul’s cry for a rescue that is of God.  While it remains I have a healthy appetite, but my hope runs deeper than emotion.  It is a fact – a completed act and vow that I can observe within myself.

My eyes fail, looking for your promise.

I say, “When will you comfort me?”

My body follows the pattern of my spirit and my mind, properly confessing that he will, that he has promised to save, but asking when.  We are allowed to ask “When?” – but asked to trust he will.

Though I am like a wineskin in the smoke

I do not forget your decrees.

Losing weight, tanned, dirty, smelly, stinging eyes – all this is secondary.  Though I am in pain and though my body tends cries for attention, I do not forget, for my knowledge of God’s laws is not simply the interest of my mind.  My spiritual memory is formed of my past actions, which prove that I have not forgotten God’s way, because even now I long for him.

How long must your servant wait?  

When will you punish my persecutors?

Asking these questions directly means that the only real answer comes with God’s action.

The arrogant dig pitfalls for me –

Contrary to your law.

Ridiculous, isn’t it Lord?  What do they imagine they will achieve?  Let me draw your attention to it, Father.  Here are traps – illegal traps!  For me!  When I am following your decrees the path is firm and dry – but traps are everywhere.

All your commands are trustworthy,

Help me, for men persecute me without cause.

My persecutors do not know, follow or understand your commands.  Help me by helping me to follow these trustworthy commands that will characterise my life so differently – by trusting, not imagining my own way, by doing, not worrying – and so within my own mind to remove those causeless, weak persecutors which I now know to be impermanent and senseless.  My own self-indulgent habits and ways of thought that have become traps for me as I walk your path – help me to disregard such unholiness.

They almost wiped me from the earth

But I have not forsaken your precepts.

Even King David risked being forgotten, it seems.  But what is more permanent than wealth and Kingdoms?  God’s law – and all those things that follow the pattern of God’s instruction share its security.

Preserve my life according to your love

and I will obey the statutes of your mouth.

These aren’t just any statutes!  God’s spoken care for us is as eternal as his ancient rules – but we have a new promise of these rules, no longer rules to us but a conversation.  And this is his preservation – to be with us and in us by his Word.

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Verses 25-32

I am laid low in the dust

Preserve my life according to your word.

This section of the great poem is written in a deeply emotional state – a state of mind which cannot see any way out and a place of the dry spirit.  In such time, our prayer should be for God to preserve our life, so that we continue to live, because if we persist, we are guaranteed to enjoy gladness again.  His word will bring us life if we are patient.  God’s promises are and always have been to extend our life, both in time and in depth – to give more to us and to multiply us by his miraculous power.  In this he will never fail us.

I recounted my ways and you answered me;

teach me your decrees.

Confession underpins this sincere and repeated request: teach me!

Let me understand the teaching of your precepts

then I will meditate on your wonders. 

Because God holds understanding and at the moment they are mysteries to me, we should ask to understand why he has said what he has, and this will bring us to worship when we can read between the lines!

My soul is weary with sorrow,

strengthen me according to your word.

A weak soul is indecisive and takes no pleasure in anything – only God’s Spirit – his Word – speaking to us in our secret place can stir us up again.

Keep me from deceitful ways,

be gracious to me according to your law.

If we pray like this God will show us what to do, but also he will intervene.  We do not believe, as some think, that God simply gives us morality to live by, but that he himself wants to share our life, and that means expecting to see him work, get involved, and roll up his sleeves.  His law of love, his law of obedience, is the way of showing and acting out grace to us.

I have chosen the way of truth;

I have set my heart on your laws.

Other things must come second.  As the old chorus goes, I have decided to follow Jesus.  This is an exclusive statement – we choose truth and God’s law and Jesus’ example over every other way and path in the world.  Other things will have to happen later, or perhaps we won’t bother with them at all.  If we walk the way of truth we will have no time for deceit and untruth – either self-deceit or dishonesty towards others.

I hold fast to your statutes, O Lord,

do not let me be put to shame.

This holding fast will be a tight grip – the grip of Psalm 63, ‘My soul clings to you, your right hand upholds me’.

I run in the path of your commands,

for you have set my heart free!

When I was walking the Pennine way over Ickornshaw Moor I prayed for strength to walk a bit further, when I needed to make camp and there was nowhere good to camp.  But instead of a little strength, I felt the joy of the Lord come upon me, as in Isaiah 40:31, and I felt the eagle’s wings and with the bag that was as heavy as it had been for the previous eleven miles, I began to run!

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Psalm 119 – Verses 1-8

Blessed are they whose ways are blameless,

Our ways are important to God – it’s our ways that make us stand out in the world.  And what are these blameless ways?  I think of James’ letter – Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  (1:27)  There’s an inner and an outer dimension to this walk – and being in a way that is merciful, faithful, generous, free is to be blameless.  The Lord blesses them – and these, in this psalm, are his words of blessing.  Those who receive the blessing are those justified by faith, believing and carrying no sin.

 who walk according to the way of the Lord.

This means our walk is defined by the God’s word: his law is the definitive guide to every step and the entire trek – our stumbling, childlike toddle and our youthful racing.  The beginning of our responsibility to crawl forward like a baby, and begin to rise to our feet!

 Blessed are they who keep his statutes

and seek him with all of their heart.

To keep his law and to follow his law is to seek him.  To be obedient is to prove that you are willing to be visited by the Spirit.  The greatest treat or happiness we can have is to be in the place of seeking God.

They do nothing wrong:

they walk in his ways.

Because they don’t fear stepping out of God’s will, they know the height and width and breadth of his love for them, so his ways are explorable, free, open – what we might call free-grazing!

You have laid down precepts

that are to be fully obeyed.

Yes, commands and instructions that are only valuable when we carry them out to the end – when we complete the task and finish the race.  And to fulfil things like this – when we have no strength?  God promises to be our strength – they shall run and not grow weary – and so we don’t fulfil these instructions by the letter but by the Spirit – by God’s grace.  These precepts are foundational for us – their weight is indicated when the psalmist says ‘You have laid down…’ as if they were flagstones or paving on the road.  And this is a prophetic address to Jesus, too.  He has laid down instructions that, fully obeyed, become a firm and plain pathway to walk, to run, through life, almost fulfilling themselves in us rather than requiring us to fulfil them.

Oh that my ways were steadfast

in obeying your decrees!

After receiving revelation of the great value of God’s word, what else can we do but cry out in sorrow for our failure and in desire for their good!  This is our new heart’s cry – the Spirit of life within us cries this out to God – as did Jesus, who loved to obey his father and longed to follow his decrees, even unto death.

Then I would not be put to shame

when I consider all your commands.

Because our conscience will shame us if we think honestly – for all the commands convict us, sooner or later.  If one does, then the whole law does.  But a right sense of shame only exalts God higher, in thankfulness for Jesus and in adoration of God’s holiness.  And when we realise that it is God’s single purpose to bring about his kingdom by changing us so that we do indeed become steadfast and obedient, then we will worship even more, knowing that we can be free of shame.

I will praise you with an upright heart

as I learn your righteous laws.

The process of being shamed and of continuing is the process of learning the law of love – and our redeemed heart will continue to praise God all through the process of sanctification – all through the increasing revelation of God’s plan – even while we read this psalm.  Not a thing can happen but, taken rightly, it will lead us to praise God.

I will obey your decrees;

do not utterly forsake me.

Yes, it will happen.  My obedience to your word, O God, will happen, not because of me but because of what you have promised, again and again.  It will happen because you, yourself, are training me in righteousness.  To leave me without shame and with no conviction would be worse than to suffer correction, so do not forsake me.  What we have now from you is good for us.

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Coming Soon… Psalm 119

In the first half of 2014 I made an extended Bible study as part of my devotional time with God, re-reading Psalm 119 – known to some Bibletriviaphiles as the longest chapter and Psalm in Scripture. I’ve always had a particular fondness to it, since the little red Hodder and Stoughton NIV I carried almost everyday at secondary school habitually fell open there, in the Psalms, and the second section, ‘How can a young man keep his way pure?’, spoke to me very directly.

But reading it again in the light of the path of my last two years, I’ve gained a great deal by doing more than silently thinking on it. Pray-reading has become part of my devotional discipline since May, so praying this Psalm aloud, speaking God’s truth back to Him, meant that it became more important as I gave it more power in me. (If you are unfamiliar with the discipline of pray-reading, you may know the lectio divina of the catholic tradition.) Around Christmas when I talked with my Dad, he also made a comment that Jesus, raised to know and love scripture, would have had the Psalms as his prayer and songbook – so to read them as he would have read them, letting David’s ‘I’ become directly prophetic of Jesus’ daily walk, puzzling and wondering on what gospel occasions he might have prayed these very words, reading them like this has also given them a real depth. If anything, the solemnity with which these prayers and poems were used by Jesus inspires me to treat them the same.

And at the same time I’ve experienced a re-awakening of my spiritual life, as God has brought about great changes in my life. Realising that my life’s greatest work will always be the fitting of myself for heaven – the sacrifice of my self to Jesus – the altering of my walk from a selfish one to a holy one – has meant I have discovered a new passion and insight for the wonderful work of sanctification that God works in us through the Holy Spirit. And in Psalm 119 I have found a step-by-step account of sanctification in the believer.

At the same time as studying and praying these words I have also been making real decisions about my life and acting upon them. The last year has seen my engagement to be married and my movement from employed work to self-employed work. In walking this way, Psalm 119 has been a direct guide to my thoughts and words.

To begin a brief overview of the Psalm, a word about revelation. I have learnt to distinguish between the knowledge that we can gain in our minds – the understanding of facts, causes, purposes and events that engages our intellect and our reason – from the deep understanding and knowledge that is born in the spirit. One is worldly, the other heavenly, one will pass, the other will remain forever. Intellectual understanding can lead to revelation – but it does not cause it – for revelation to the spirit of a believer is the gracious gift of God. Let me explain a little more: it is quite possible to know something to be true – for example, the promise of Jesus in Matthew 6 that our Father in heaven will provide for us – and yet to have no conviction of this and to fail to act upon it in any way so that your manner is different to those who have no faith. It is possible to understand that Jesus rose from the dead and do nothing about it – to intellectually think that this is the most reasonable reading of the evidence – and not to have it touch your heart or change the manner of your life. It is possible to know many things… But when a lesson sinks deep to touch your spirit, you must act on it – it is unbearable not to. So we see those who are moved to act in pity and love and give all their energy to charitable work when we who know that it is valuable do not. What is the difference between them and us? That their understanding is a spiritual understanding – that it is more than their head knowing that this is true, but their very being assents to it.

This then is real teaching, real education. This is also real growth. No-one – in this life – can bear all, and we need not feel guilty for not being touched or moved by those things that move others. But conviction within us can be a sign that our spirit longs to be involved – and that conviction is God’s greatest gift to us for daily guidance.

So when reading Scripture we are instructed not simply to look at it, think about it and apply it theoretically, but to actively invite revelation.

How can we do this? How can we overcome ourselves and make ourselves available to God – for in his mercy and grace, he is always willing to give?

Firstly we must ask – with words and actions. He may expect us to ‘prove’ that we are ready – which may actually consist of acting, physically, to replace the normally dominant mind with a more balanced internal hierarchy, in which the Spirit of God within us calls to God our Father. Personally, I aim for this rebalancing through the following spiritual disciplines: prayer walks, when in the country; prayer in tongues, when travelling, feeling short of time, in company, or wanting to include some daily act such as preparing food as part of my prayer; kneeling, bowing and lying down, when in congregation or in private, to express my awe and obedience particularly; singing, in almost all circumstances; dancing, in privacy and increasingly in congregation; pray-reading or lectio-divina, which is challenging but very valuable; making a sacrifice of time, money or something valuable to me by giving it away, less frequently than I should!

In general, the revelation I have received from the Psalm is this: obedience to God’s law, which we now understand in the new covenant, changes a person so as to bring about decisive action in them, which in turn leads to experience, often struggles and suffering as we overcome the remaining human nature and become less worldly, but these pains allow us to understand with our spirit and receive God’s revelation, which makes us more like Jesus, our perfect model, and makes us more dependent upon God’s Word, which we need to teach us the more we find the wisdom of the world will not suit our changed way of life, and also causes us to enjoy and desire God’s law with greater fervour, bringing about more obedience. To me, this is a beautifully clear teaching method that can never be completed in this life, only the speed of our travel upon the path changed, for once engaged, the effects upon us are indelible. It is the work of re-creation, of sanctification in its simplicity and beauty and starkness and severity. At times, God wishes to show us subtle things, at others, to confront us with harsh truths and necessary sacrifices. And his simple entry route for us is pure obedience – to believe in God and in the one he has sent.