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!

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.

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.

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.

Verses 57-64

You are my portion, O Lord;

I have promised to obey your words.

He is what we are allotted, now; not a thing, but a person, not a future idea or a dream of success but  relationship – this follows on from our promise to obey, and then sustains it – which began by inspiration and continues by inspiration as we give over our will to his spirit in us.

I have sought your face with all my heart

Be gracious to me according to your promise.

The writer’s past has been one of seeking God’s face – can we say it is our past too?  Our heart will divide if we do not give it over to God and still then we have to seek him – like being in love and wanting to see your friend, not being content to know they are there!  But God’s promises of grace from the beginning of all things to now are the things that will allow us to have this undivided heart.

I have considered my ways

and have turned my steps to your statutes.

That really is the only option!  To turn again onto the path and keep walking.  The statutes are a stairway in places, every step forward taking us a step up, in other places a meadow or a rocky cliff-edge.

I will hasten and not delay

to obey your commands.

It is a rush!  Like a man hurrying home, shifting his pack high.  As I read this now, I feel convicted, but I also remember the adrenalin of running after the Lord’s ways.  Do you?  Nothing else feels like that!

Though the wicked bind me with ropes,

I will not forget your law.

Like a man off the path, longing to be walking the high ways, over the hills, even though he is restrained, his mind and his spirit still travel with the Lord.  It’s not the destination, but the company…

At midnight I will rise to give you thanks

for your righteous laws.

Relevant at midnight and at all other times.  Rising in the body is good – it prepares us to rise in our spirits as well.

I am a friend to all who fear you,

to all who follow your precepts.

By virtue of the grace given to all of us – and don’t I love being in brotherhood!  Finding a new brother is sweet, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the brothers are wise if they set out to go walking together.

The Earth is filled with your love, O Lord,

teach me your decrees.

The view from the top of the hill.  Our response has to be awe: how did you do it, Lord?  Show me what makes you so good.  I want to be where you are!

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!