Author’s Ideas Blog

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A Spiritual Diet

I was talking with the Lord last year over a meal and heard him clearly tell me to eat up my dinner.  Three times.  After that sort of amusing word, I’m always intrigued.  This is how the Lord likes to hook me, I think!

Protein builds muscles, he reminded me.  So I began to think about this with some new insight, for everything that is true for our physical body is reflected in our spirit, I’m learning.  When we do things – when we exercise – our muscles are torn and worn and it is in the repairing of them, using protein we’ve eaten, that they are strengthened.  So what is it that makes us stronger in the spirit?

It is the Word – scripture – God’s speaking to us – that builds us up.  We know this!  But our diet must be coupled with exercise – with obedience to the word.  Without the tearing and the wearing out of our human abilities the muscles of a human spirit cannot be rebuilt as muscles of Jesus’ spirit in us.  God works in these organic ways, growing and replacing from within – we see it all the time.

To continue the analogy, rice gives us energy.  Carbohydrate is the fuel of our continuing life, allowing us to move.  What is it that energises us in the spiritual realm?  Surely it is praise and worship!  You can go a day without carbs, but your body will need to re-wire and re-plumb and improvise to find some energy somewhere – yet you are designed to burn that carbohydrate in every cell of your body!  Now sometimes we think we can get on without worship, yet worship is the thing that gives us energy – spiritual energy – to do the work that God has for us.  As we burn the fuel – make the offering – give the sacrifice – we ourselves are cleansed and changed and made ready to act.

I think the analogy could go even further – I love to shove a metaphor – and I wonder whether prophecy might not fill some of the place that minerals and vitamins do in our earthly diet…  But there are so many things to be explored here!  Suffice to say, I’m convinced that getting the two big blocks sorted for growth is a good place to start – the protein of the Word, exercised through obedience, and the carbohydrate fuel of worship, burnt to give us life!

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Verses 49-56

Remember your word to your servant,

for you have given me hope.

We ask God to remember the past because he has already spoken – we are not praying to a new God or a God who will answer for the first time!  He has given his hope before and earlier – and yet this is hope for us today.

My comfort in my suffering is this,

Your promise preserves my life.

Yes, he does, it does.  Jesus is the culmination of all God’s promises and he has brought us eternal life.  God’s promise preserved Jesus himself – and his promises to us will preserve our lives as long as is necessary: until, for example, the bibles are delivered, because we are all the fulfilment of God’s promise to someone somewhere!

The arrogant mock me without restraint,

but I do not turn from your law.

Make an offering of determination to God.  Sacrificing regular daily work, which takes continual effort, or determination to continue despite opposite.

I remember your ancient laws, O Lord,

and I find comfort in them.

The oldest laws – to multiply, to subdue the earth and steward it – as well as all those laws which are now ancient for us – they should bring us comfort.  It should be pleasant to be obedient.

Indignation grips me because of the wicked

who have forsaken your law.

A school that doesn’t hear God!  It makes me angry – and sad.

Your decrees are the theme of my song

wherever I lodge.

This is time well spent – but not singing them or singing about them is the real waste of our time.

In the night I remember your name, O Lord,

and I will keep your law.

Our memory is a tool for our growth and has its own patterns.  We remember God’s grace to us at strange times – sometimes in dreams or waking in the night.

This has been my practice

I will obey your precepts.

Awaking at night and remembering how God introduced himself to us can be a powerful way of establishing something within your spirit.

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Verses 41-48

May your unfailing love come to me, O Lord,

your salvation according to your promise.

The Lord’s love is unfailing – it does not, and cannot weaken – and his salvation is always prefigured and promised.

Then I will answer the one who taunts me,

for I trust in your word.

Our answer to the accuser, or the accusing voice of self-criticism, comes from God’s love for us, not from our understanding or ability, and the effect of this argument is that it teaches us to trust in God.  The accuser can be the Devil, as Jesus found in the wilderness, and exactly so did he make his answer: with the word, based on his knowledge of the father’s love for him.  The accuser can be our guilt or any obstacle in life: all receive the same, simple, child-like, foolish answer: God has love for me and has promised to save me and he will not fail – he will change me if I have done wrong and been sinful and he requires me simply to believe this.

Do not snatch the word of truth from my mouth,

for I have put my hope in your laws.

The word can disappear from our lives, if we cease our eating of it.  Then we will look around in anger and sorrow, seeking the thing we have lost, but ineffectually until we submit ourselves and our behaviour to God’s changing power.  The transformational power of God’s word is so strong that absolutely anybody can come to faith in an instant and believe, but absolutely no-one can remain as they were in character and behaviour if they are to remain in his Word.  We have to pray, Lord, please don’t take your utterance away from me like the world seeks to take it away.  Plenty of things remove God’s word from my mind and my mouth – too many – but to hope in God’s laws is to speak of it, and speak it – to breathe it in and out – and we should want to say ‘I cannot live without it any longer’.  This is the air I breathe… this is my daily bread… your holy presence living in me, your very word, spoken to me.

I will obey your law

forever and ever.

Talking of God’s law, it is eternal.  And it makes us eternal.

I will walk about in freedom,

for I have sought out your precepts.

Freedom from the law of the world and from the world’s pattern of being only comes when we seek the pearl of great worth and renounce everything else.  A maturing believer must choose to prioritise this over all things.

I will speak of your statutes before kings

and will not be put to shame,

Our evangelism, our witness, will be fruitful wherever we go because of the pattern of our new life, which is not an outward veneer but the natural expression of a changed heart.

For I delight in your commands

because I love them.

This heart-search becomes a simple love story: we go where we love to, when we seek God’s power and his breath and his will.

I lift my hands to your commands, which I love,

and I meditate on your decrees.

Worship and meditation on all that God says is the life and breath of this seeking for God’s word.  We worship with it – speaking his own words as truth in our lives – and dwelling, chewing, discussing his law and his parables and his instructions.  Thank you, Father, for Scripture, for Jesus and the faithful reports of his good friends who have given us their testimony.  May each of our lives be a testimony to the God who speaks and gives life through grace!

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Verses 33-40

Teach me, O Lord, to follow your decrees;

then I will keep them to the end.

The Lord’s teaching is eternally effective because it changes our character, instead of simply describing the way things are to us.

Give me understanding and I will keep your law

and obey it with all my heart.

To try to keep God’s law without understanding what it is, or what it is for, or how it works, is not the point.  We are no longer slaves but sons and heirs and he wants us to join the family business and participate in his way with a whole-hearted response, just as he does.  Has it ever occurred to you that God is not above the law?  He keeps it pure and undefiled, in his son, in his spirit and in himself.

Direct me in the path of your commands

for there I find my delight.

My search for joy can finish in his command – in his Word – if I care to think about it in that light.  If we seek delight there, we will find it.

Turn my heart towards your statutes

and not towards selfish gain.

Yes, that all my ambitions might find a place in you, Lord.  We are very broken – we can’t turn our own hearts at all!  This is a real symptom of the disease of sin – a disobedient heart that longs for and lusts after unholy things – but this is a true proof of God’s grace: he will turn our heart for us.  And God’s laws run exactly opposite to selfishness: we need have no worry or guilt or self-criticism when our hearts are after the things he says.

Turn my eyes away from worthless things;

preserve my life according to your word.

To stay fixed on the valuable things is to remain alive!  Life is not worth living if all we can see are diseased things.  But the things we let into our spirit through our eyes will extend and preserve our life.

Fulfil your promise to your servant,

so that you may be feared.

Testimony is powerful, isn’t it?  It is awe-inspiring and intended to shock us with God’s gracefulness and faithfulness.  If God were to keep all his promises – just consider how many that is for a moment – wouldn’t that unutterably change our lives?  Now consider: God will keep all his promises!  His promises to Adam, to Eve, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to David, Solomon, to Hannah and to Simeon and Anna and Mary and Elizabeth and to Jonah and to Jeremiah and every secret promise he has made to every king, prophet, teacher, labourer, designer, musician, angel, messenger, translator, builder, farmer, meteorologist, child and grandparent.  Consider the scope of these promises!  All the promises he made to Jesus and to John!  If you have ever had the Spirit assure you of something, that too will be fulfilled – and if, like me, you are too forgetful of the promises God has made to you, testify to them, write them down, record them for your children, tell them abroad.  All the little ones – the ones we consider little – about the weather and the mood of someone we have to talk to and the ones about work and money.  All the great ones about our name in the book of life.  When we speak them with our mouth our brain records them in our experience and we build our faith.  We redesign our life.

Take away the disgrace I dread,

for your laws are good.

Fear is the enemy of satisfaction.  So we make a good swap with the Lord – our disgrace for his law!  Seek to please God, rather than any other authority, and fear no disgrace!  We cannot be disgraced before God – dis-graced!  Because Grace is not revoked.

How I long for your precepts!

Preserve my life in your righteousness.

With all this in mind, can’t we say we long to hear from God, through Scripture, through the still small voice, through a song or dance of worship, through the wind in the trees!  To understand his law and his way of living, his new covenant of grace, his sacrifice in our place, his healing power, his life where there was death!  These are the things that will bring us life as we understand them, experience them, make them primary in our lives.  His righteousness – his unique characteristic – is what we seek!  And we were promised that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be satisfied.

It was around this point that I had my own personal revelation.  I wrote, on the 12.1.14; In my teaching, in my writing, I want to please God.  There’s all this talk of pleasing Ofsted – none of pleasing our creator, who cares for us, who’s nearby.  That was when I decided to leave teaching and seek a new way.

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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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Verses 17-24

Do good to your servant,

and I will live.

The agency and the initiative in our relationship with God all belongs to him.  All life is dependent upon God doing good to us.  To live in reality is to obey God.  His continued decision to support us, to remain true to his promises, to continue sustaining the created world, lays down the physical and spiritual laws of the universe.  We all obey these words whether we acknowledge it or not!  His goodness in doing this causes us to live – but to live a deep and real life – a living life, not a death-in-life, we choose to acknowledge his truth: that he does good to his servant and this itself is the best life we can enjoy.

Open my eyes that I may see

wonderful things in your law!

Again, this is dependent upon God’s action – he must open our eyes before we see with understanding.  The wonderful things are already there in God’s law – he does not put them there new for us, or create fancy ideas for our benefit!  Can you imagine how Jesus must have prayed this scripture?  How hungry he was to receive his Father’s wonderful revelation when reading and studying scripture?  This is the attitude we should have!

I am a stranger on earth;

do not hide your commands from me.

 Like walker, travelling through a strange part of the country, remaining on one path, we can feel this at times.  Certainly Jesus must have.  To feel separate from the ways of other people, looking for direction when we speak a different language to so many of the inhabitants!  Nor are we owners in our own land – even as stewards the world can be so strange to us.  We are not in possession of the earth but visitors, here and then gone, requiring direction and help.  What better help than God’s commands and his revelation of their purposes, meanings and effects?

My soul is consumed with longing

for your laws at all times.

We may feel this in our body or even our mind or even our emotions – but know this: once we have decided to follow Jesus, a longing for God will possess your soul and nothing else will ever satisfy you in your spirit!  This hunger to know God’s ‘laws’ is exactly what the psalmist is struggling to understand as he worships and expresses himself.  The different phrases he uses – law, precept, word, command, decree, statues – are his attempts to lasso whatever it is that God speaks that we long for so much – his activity in our lives, whether we read it in scripture, see it in Jesus’ example, notice it in the world, hear it from a brother or sister, whether it is his instruction, his warning, his promise, his description, his comfort, his chiding, his correction or his blessing.

You rebuke the arrogant,

who are cursed and stray from your commands.

Yes, this is the nature of God’s character: he himself, in his gentleness and his merciful exercise of his power, is a rebuke to anyone and any part of ourselves characterised by arrogance: he alone acts with propriety and an appropriate sense of self-importance!  To stray from his commands – well, that is a curse upon oneself!  To be disobedient is to invite all manner of suffering.  So the curse and the rebuke of the arrogant is that they cannot remain in obedience to God.

Remove from me scorn and contempt,

for I keep your statutes. 

We do not have to move from where God has set us – rather, the scorn and contempt of the world is removed from us.  Once again, this is God’s action rather than our own.  Also the inner scorn and self-criticism will be removed if we confess to ourselves that our will is made subject to God.  If, as we say this, we feel our conscience convict us, then we act upon it until we can speak with a clear conscience.  What a gift the conscience is, to keep us in purity and joy.

Though rulers sit together and slander me,

your servant will meditate on your decrees.

So this meditation now, reading these words of God and allowing them to renew you mind and to soften your heart, this is the appropriate reaction and the right response to pressure from the slanderous authorities of the world.  When things get tough and people look badly at you, consider the things that God has said and done and what it means for you.

Your statutes are my delight;

they are my counsellors.

We can go to God’s Word for advice, since it is much older and wiser than us, also fresher and more alive.  Good advice comes from the law, and the law lives in Jesus and Jesus dwells in us by the Holy Spirit.  Was ever a King or Director privileged to have such good advice as we are given, from the very voice of God?  Hallelujah indeed!

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Verses 9-16

How can a young man keep his way pure?

By living according to your word.

 This questions is worthy of a considerable prayer before God.  It is relevant to an individual, but also to the church – it is vital that young people find the way of purity and holiness!  With it, their spiritual growth and the prospering of the kingdom is sure.  Without it… stagnation, confusion and loss.  What is the one thing that allows a person to remain separate and holy and unlike the world?  It really is this simple – a life that is aligned to the Word of God.  And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us…  If we want to align ourselves with the Word of God, we welcome Jesus into our lives, by his Holy Spirit, whom he promised will teach us all things and remind us of his Word – the words that we hear which are not from Jesus but from the Father and of the Father.  And the Gospels and the law and the prophets and the letters and every part of scripture, in pointing to the Word, Jesus Christ, is the way we are to live.

I seek you with all of my heart;

do not let me stray from your commands.

 The great truth that God will allow us to live as Jesus does – in unity with him – should motivate us to search whole-heartedly for the one who loves us.  Forgive us, Lord, when these words are not true and we give other things place in our hearts – but also, Lord, cut away that hard and selfish and stupid heart and give us the heart of flesh and tenderness that longs for you!  For God to ‘not let’ us to stray, he must have a firm grip on us – we must allow him to grasp us tightly with his hand – we must be given over to him and willing to feel the uncomfortable proximity of his clutch.  Only if we change ourselves to allow this vast and direct invasion of our privacy will God be able to be God in us.

I have hidden your word in my heart

that I might not sin against you.

Sin and evil comes out of the heart, as Jesus taught us – but replace an earthly heart with an eternal, heavenly one, and sin will have no place to be rooted.  It cannot survive in the soil of the new kingdom – temptation might attract us, but it will wither, if our heart is given over.  How to keep giving over the heart to God?  The soil must be tilled regularly, and fertilised.  The Word of God – his voice to us – his plan, his intention, as revealed in Scripture and as lived in Jesus – that is harrow that breaks the soil and the fertiliser that makes the heart ready to produce good crops of heavenly abundance.

Praise be to you, O Lord,

teach me your decrees.

These two statements are always intertwined.  Worship and praise always implicates a desire to know more of God – to experience and understand more – which is exactly his method of teaching: exposure to himself.  If we pray this, then we are asking for God’s presence in our lives, because this is how he gives us eyes to see and a ready heart.  His decrees – his eternal judgements and laws – are recorded in Scripture – and if we are ready to see them, we will see the results of them all around us in the world.  Praise to God as the Creator will allow our eyes to see his law in nature.  Praise to God the Saviour will allow our eyes to see his law in people, whom he saves and recreates.

With my lips I recount

all the laws that come from your mouth.

In the Bible we can count and learn all the laws God has given – to individuals, to nations, to peoples and to all of us.  We can also recount his instructions to people, one by one, which are the impression of his law of love and justice in that circumstance.  What better thing to dwell upon and learn?

I rejoice in following your statutes

as one rejoices in great riches.

And yes, this is great wealth, isn’t it?  We do not possess God’s statutes – his principles – in the manner of ownership; we follow them.  This leaves us free and responsible to choose our actions and express ourselves.  Truly, we have cause to rejoice when we realise the privilege it is to serve a good and kind God.   This following allows us to grow – for what we see one day of God’s instruction will be deepened the next day, and the next, and the next.  It also allows us to be surprised!

I meditate on your precepts

and consider your ways.

God’s principles and his actions are well worth our meditation – our deepest degree of reflection and thought.  If we simply had God’s law and no record of his miraculous intervention in our world, we could too easily believe that it was in our power to fulfil the law and justify ourselves.  If we simply had record of God’s actions in time, to the Jewish people or to anyone else, and no revelation of his law, we would have no responsibility to join his way.  But as it is, the Word gives us both, in Scripture and in the person of Jesus, so it is our duty to consider both, and to consider them together.

I delight in your decrees,

I will not neglect your word.

All of God’s utterances bring us joy, because he is both good and just, and we are right to delight in them like people delighting in their leisure and their wealth and their family and their freedom.  God’s decrees – his words to all the world – are for us to delight in.  How then can we desire anything else?  We can honestly say that we will not neglect his word because Jesus has promised to be always with us, and if at times we find it hard to motivate ourselves to study and learn Scripture, or hard to pray and feel his presence, or hard to hear the prophetic guiding voice of the Spirit, or hard to follow through on what we mean to do, we will not neglect the word as long as we praise God and desire to live in him.  Why?  Because this does not depend on us – it depends on his desire to be with us.

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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 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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Wine and Water

A glass of wine might slake the thirst

But water, sure to rest the soul

Runs freer, less in our control,

The next draught swifter than the first.

 

Yet still we have this drink to share

Through time, across a world made small,

I drink with poets, saints and all

Distracted, dreaming, trying to care.

 

Blood.  It does not mix with oil.

Another source of cleanliness

To sluice the cuts that nonetheless

Are stinging, tinctured with the soil

 

Of all the everyday, and night,

The bringer of our rest or pains,

Should heal us as we sleep, but veins

Of running sorrow bleed us white.

 

So washing off all worry’s marks –

Cold splash of spring-fed water, or

A brassy jug of wine to pour

So rainbows shine in ringing arcs.

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City Lights

A mile away the city lights –

The ancient, banking city, lit

With red and white and sure to fit

All today’s money – those clear sights

 

Which stand on towers stood to the South

One half the distance to my school,

They blink and glimmer like the pool

Reflecting stars from night’s broad mouth.

 

From here I see them every dusk

And every morning, if I rise,

They shine beneath plane-brightened sies,

They flood the morning like rich musk,

 

A smell of money?  Or of time?

Perhaps of youth?  But none I know,

The choices I took long ago

Forewent this wealth, undid this crime

 

To eat while others starved and cried,

I chose to eat the children’s bread

And rest upon a narrow bed

That barely rests me on my side.

 

But then it was no choice for me –

There never was an enchantment

About the interests money lent

So how can I claim virtue’s fee?

 

Our hearts each lead us where our minds

Can tell us that our calling dwells

And all the lies that rumour tells

Are as the rusted swords time finds.

 

As years pass, they seem less and less,

All worn by soil, by water, salt,

And distant tongues grow hard and halt

While living words grow and possess.