Psalm 119:5 Trying & Training

Oh, that my ways were steadfast
in obeying your decrees!

Psalm 119:5

Our friend Susan lives and works in a place where she is constantly surrounded by people whose mouths are filled with foul language and foul smokes. Their greatest priority in life is to satisfy whatever desire or lust rises up to demand attention at any given moment.

No wonder, then, that Susan has struggled mightily as she tries to give up smoking, tries to clean up her language, tries to be a different person than she had allowed herself to become.

She has become a Christian, but she wonders why she still struggles to live a better life.

And then she grasped hold of a concept from John Ortberg's The Life You've Always Wanted:

"Spiritual transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but of training wisely."

David echoes this in Psalm 119. He understands that if his "ways" - his habits, his disciplines, his 'rule of life' - are steadfast, then he will naturally be the kind of person who obeys the decrees of God.

Susan began focusing more on the Word of God than on the words coming from her mouth. She became addicted to her daily regimen of Bible meditation and prayer, and stopped worrying about her addiction to nicotine (and other things even more deadly).

The more she becomes consistent and steadfast in her new spiritually disciplined way of life, the easier it is to feed her hunger for fellowship with God and for his righteousness. And the less she feels compelled to satisfy every other desire and hunger that nags at her for attention.

Obedience, with the life of discipline it requires, both leads to and, then, issues from the pervasive inner transformation of the heart and soul.

Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy