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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!

September 27

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!

September 23

Verses 89-96

You word, O Lord, is eternal;

It stands firm in the heavens.

God’s word is eternally alive. It is timeless, neither running out of effects nor of time for its effects to take place. It stands in the heavens like the sun, moon and stars – eternal, unchanged, but how differently we see it day to day and month by month, when we care to pay attention.

Your faithfulness continues through all generations;

You established the earth and it endures.

Like the legends of the sky, told to grandchildren, tales of God’s faithfulness are intended to be told over and over again. But earth, sun, moon and stars exist in imitation of his Word, and not vice versa!

Your laws endure to this day,

For all things serve you.

God’s will – it is impossible for sun, moon or stars to disobey them, or move outside the realm of their control. Even human manipulation will only exist within God’s given physical and spiritual laws. And his law is so fur us, as people. To know him is to love and obey him – this is the unavoidable physical and spiritual law. We see his law by its effect on things, but not on a few things, rather on all things in all time. Therefore we know his law must be everywhere and eternal.

If your law had not been my delight,

I would have perished in my affliction.

The Psalmist says “I would be dead” if it weren’t for you – and depends on a joyful delight in following God’s self, not a grudging acceptance of doing what we are told. Death is to serve without love, to follow without understanding or to participate without any ownership. Gdo offers us something quite different in his Word.

I will never forget your precepts,

For by them you have preserved my life.

I won’t – can’t – it will not happen – for this experience of God’s precepts is indelible, physical, imprinted on me, body and soul. Brain is hard-written, spirit is changed. Continued life involves remembering. [Re-reading this in September 2015, originally noted 26-4-14, I am amazed that God showed me this and that so much of what I currently experience and understand can be traced to the effect of God’s word on my life as I studied Psalm 119.]

Save me, for I am yours;

I have sought your precepts.

I want to live in salvation – in being saved. That is the same as being yours, Father. And it increases my taste for instruction. I have gone looking for teaching to be changed by it. [Seeking God’s precepts marks us out as His. We belong to him because we seek him – what a privilege. What easy access to the Holy of Holies! Seek.]

The wicked are waiting to destroy me

But I will ponder on your statutes.

Every day, they are there with their temptations and a breath of death, but your law cannot be touched by such things – it is above the heavens. By even wondering at what you have said – by simply thinking to myself, “What does this mean?”, I allow you to preserve me from destruction, from falling into temptation, from giving into sin.

To all perfection I see a limit

But your commands are boundless.

Oh, Hallelujah! Ah! High,mighty and eternal are you, O God! Your very Word with us, eternal, perfect, all-encompassing, all-embracing, breathing through all, teaching through all… I praise you, God!

September 22

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.

September 21September 21

Verses 73-80

Your hands made me and formed me;

Give me understanding to learn your commands.

From the same hands come creation and training, both acts of love. Initially we are made – and well-made – but spiritually unformed – and then formed by the growth of understanding as we learn to obey God and follow his law. His chosen method of explaining – his Spirit – is required to learn about his laws. That is unavoidable. To know of his commands is only the beginning, since we are designed to relate to them and to relate to him through them.

May those who fear you rejoice when they see me,

For I have put my hope in your word.

A ruler or king can be trusted when he hopes in God, which is enacted when he looks for goodness in God’s utterance. People around don’t simply receive pleasure but joy!

I know, O Lord, that your laws are righteous

And in faithfulness you have afflicted me.

We can have factual knowledge and know, without any experience, that God is good, but to be faithful to his promise to teach us, God will judge us in the law – and then in the new law. He couldn’t leave us thinking we knew him and his ways when we had never been tested or had opportunity to depend on him. So Jesus prays in the garden “Your faithfulness to your own plan requires this suffering.”

Let your compassion come to me that I may live

For your law is my delight.

Without his compassion, I would surely die, but I seek your compassion because I love your law – because I love your living word. I know what your compassion is like and look for it where it is likely to be found.

May the arrogant be put to shame for wronging me without cause;

But I will meditate on your precepts.

The causeless actions of the arrogant bring more actions – caused ones and reasoned ones. So God repays chaos with order, deceit with truth, evil with good. But meditation is not a reaction to the arrogant. It is separate, quiet, peaceful. Arrogant actions are slander, treating people unjustly and describing them inaccurately. Meditating on God’s precepts stops this in us.

May those who fear you turn to me,

Those who understand your statutes.

Everyone who really knows God’s way of business will be drawn to holy kings, good leaders and true servants of the Gospel. Our fear of God allows us to relate to people who have ordered their life that way.

May my heart be blameless towards your decrees

That I might not be put to shame.

How? My heart must be revived and renewed. I must have learnt your word – not simply know it or know about it, but I must have been taught by it, changed by it. I must be living a new life – I must be redeemed and sealed by the Holy Spirit – for that is the blamelessness promised to us, free of condemnation and living within the law.

September 20

Verses 65-72

Do good to your servant

According to your word, O Lord.

He will only do good, since for God to do is to do good. We can have no other expectation: he only does good and he only does it well. Scripture is our witness to this, that he has done good since the very beginning and will continue to do good endlessly. Scripture is to be trusted since scripture tells us of our Saviour – which no-one else and nothing else does. So we should seek those books and points of view that reinforce our understanding and show us God being good. And when we make ourselves his servant, this inevitable good is promised to us and his breathed Spirit confirms it.

Teach me knowledge and good judgement

for believe in your commands.

Faith is the key here: believing God’s word to be good makes us teachable. Without an attitude of wonder and gratitude, we won’t ever gain understanding. Here knowledge and good judgement are inescapably paired – for without one another, each is senseless. We are called not simply to know what is right but to exercise judgement and to use our knowledge to live differently, and so prove our faith, as James encourages. This is God’s teaching style: first he gives us faith to believe him, then he gives us better and truer information and the opportunity to embed it by using it. The more we follow this pattern, the more drastic the change in our life.

Before I was afflicted I went astray

But now I obey your word.

Yes indeed – conviction, shame and reshaping are God’s tools. He does not want us astray – better afflicted with grief or suffering and on the correct path than ignorant and in bliss- stupid bliss. Better the daily challenge to our self! Lord, how I thank you for this time – this rest. Remain in me, O Lord, so that I may continue to find rest.

You are good and what you do is good;

Teach me your decrees.

Here is the proof! We know God is good and free from imperfection, because we see his goodness in the things he does. His actions are essential to him – unsurprising (once you know him well) – suited – fitting – proper – and he must act to be true to himself. He is, after all, the Living God. And he wants us to mirror this integrity. O God, that my deeds befitted what you have made me! Teach me!

Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies

I keep your precepts with all my heart.

Lies are sticky, but only touch the outside. Lying is an act of arrogance – to believe that you are bigger than the truth. But a whole heart will survive that – and a whole heart is needed to follow God’s law, since it is not an outwardly thing but an inwardly, spiritual law of the heart.

Their hearts are callous and unfeeling

But I delight in your law.

A heart of flesh loves instruction from God – loves being changed, being directed, being contradicted, because it means relationship with one who is good and does only good. A fleshly heart is keen for its own changed life, for the effects on the people around. It is not only callous, unfeeling and insensitive to reject God’s purpose in sanctifying and changing us – it is stupid and selfish! Stupid because we cannot pretend that faith has any other purpose, selfish because it prevents others from receiving God’s truth. Every believer must whole-heartedly give themselves to God’s process of change.

It was good for me to be afflicted

So that I might learn your decrees.

Amen – even at a considerable price, to say this brings us determination and helps us to value what is valuable. Because even if I knew many things previously, then I had not learnt from them because I had done little It was good, Lord, that I should suffer and be prompted into action. Recalled to life!

The law from your mouth is more precious to me

Than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.

Now I can say this for real. Our true riches are the words of God spoken to us in Scripture, made living and real by his spirit. With them comes such wisdom that we can solve problems in the world, we can change our relationships for more beautiful and worthwhile ways. With these words come challenges to our selfishness, our egocentricity, our remaining sins. May it ever be so, Lord God! Not dead words recalling a past, as some think, but your living law that teaches me and explains everything I observe in the world around – your law that brings me now to an attitude of worship – shows your great love for me, Father, as so good! So good! Amen.

September 19September 19

Next Up…

The ground shakes… A season begins… Not obviously, since autumn always slips out from beneath summer’s train. Seasons are never well defined.

But in the few months since I’ve last written on here, a lot has changed. And now I’m about to take a new journey.

My friends know a quick way to get me excited is to ask me about IF – interactive fiction – or CYOA – Choose Your Own Adventure – the genre defining series. And over the summer I got very excited and spent about 15 full writing days learning to use an IF software tool called Twine, writing a non – linear Steampunk time – sensitive role playing interactive novel, simply called Steam Highwayman.

I’ll write a lot more about it soon, but the key to my excitement with using Twine is that it provides me with a very natural writing environment, meaning that my productivity and fluency were as great during those 15 days as at any time in my life. And the finished result published in html format, meaning that it can be read easily in a Web browser.

I’ve learned a small amount of html and css from the work I had earlier this and at the end of last year editing a website for Mary’s and then building my own. But if I can up my game, the prospect of downloadable CYOA apps that combine my love of writing with modern technology awaits me.

I mean then to be spending time learning more CSS skills to create a good looking page, learning how to use android studio to create an app that will use one of my finished-ish IFs, and then to release it here.

Will I succeed? God knows. How long will it take? I don’t mind. Because whether or not I’m posting a downloadable free IF within the year, entirely written and produced by me, I know I’m learning a lot. And that feels great.

In Psalm 119 it says “Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord.” There’s nothing to blame in my desire to explore and create and I know that anything done for the glory of God can be an act of deep worship, so I’m looking forward to meeting Him and walking with Him along His road this season.

July 4September 19

Recalibrating Language

‘As like as peas in a pod.’

I’ve read it before, but real peas fresh from the garden are not alike each other. Miniscule though the differences may seem at first, the closer you look at these natural jewels, the more individual they are.

I don’t think lazy similes like the pea pods do justice to people or God’s creation. Though sometimes I might delight in the glory of the English language, it falls far short of what God promises us. Sometimes the wordless language of the open eye is a better way to receive revelation.

Jesus said “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.” (Matthew 6:22).

January 25January 25

Graham Writes About Worship – Renewal 2015

I’ve been profiting from reading and dwelling on Graham Kendrick’s stacked-up blog posts. There’s some quality discussion of leadership as a worship leader and writer of songs on his site, as well as some great stories behind some of his songs. I find it so encouraging to read how directly the spirit moved him on many occasions to create a song we now take a bit for granted! Click the pic.

In other news, I’m going to the Renewal Conference in Woolwich next weekend. I know GK and other British worship leaders tend to be there. If you haven’t heard of it, click the pic and check it out.

January 11January 2

Seeing God’s Power in the Natural World

Do you remember the fantastic story of Solomon in the third chapter of the First Book of Kings? God appeared to him at Gibeon while he slept and promised to give Solomon whatever he wished…

Solomon asked for wisdom, of course, and the First Book of Kings later describes some of the wisdom that he received in revelation from God, along with his fabled wealth:

And he spake three thousand proverbs and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. [1 Kings 4 32-33]

It seems that part of Solomon’s wisdom, rather than simply his knowledge, was his interest in the world that God has created and his hunger to understand natural history. The longing to see God’s power in the world is a driver for many beautiful writings, songs, paintings, studies and disciplines, and I feel it strongly. I wonder whether this was the wisdom that led Gerard Manley Hopkins to seek the inscape of every created thing, to understand its unique character and the song it sings to God the Father?

And Solomon had time – made time – to study and write this natural history while ruling Israel at the height of its prosperity! God can give us so much when we ask and when we are ready to receive what he gives us.