Psalm 119:9-16 Pure chance?

Sometime in the late 1950’s, the administrator of Methodist Hospital in Sioux City, Iowa, was interviewing candidates for the job of Purchasing Agent. Among the men he interviewed was a young man in his upper 20’s.

A veteran of the U.S. Navy, this fellow showed up with a greased-back pompadour atop a long and lean body as thin as a fence post. He had managed a PX in Florida during the Korean War and had parlayed that into a job in the purchasing office of the local Swift’s Meat Packing plant.

He knew nothing about hospital supplies, but Jim Dack and the young man hit it off in that interview. Like Dack, the young man had a young family. He knew from experience how caring for his own wife and pre-school sons and daughters motivated him to work hard, and suspected this young father would be equally driven to provide for his children: three boys under five, including a newborn.

The job was offered and accepted. As Jim Dack and Gale Robertson, my father, shook hands that day, the path of my life was forever changed.

Mr. Dack, as I knew him, left Sioux City for another administration job at a larger hospital in Columbia, Missouri. A year or so later, in late 1964, he found himself in need of a purchasing agent at that hospital, and called the young man who had become his good friend.

Dad moved us all to Missouri in 1965.

Have you ever thought about the decision points that forever changed the direction of your life, even before you were ever born?

I suspect I might still be a writer if I had grown up in Sioux City, Iowa. Like most writers, it seems to be something that comes from deep within me, not a choice I made consciously.

I would have grown up in the Morningside Church of Christ in Sioux City, rather than Westside Christian Church in Columbia. The Sunday School teachers and preachers who influenced me would have been different people, but would have taught me to believe similar doctrines.

Given the family in which I grew up, I would likely have chosen to go to Bible college after graduating from an Iowa high school, just as I did in Missouri. But in Missouri my family was heavily involved with Central Christian College in Moberly, Missouri. In Sioux City, the church had a close relationship with Nebraska Christian College, in Norfolk.

And that different choice of where I would go to college is where the change in my life would really accelerate. It was at Central Christian College that I was greatly influenced by one professor in particular, Wayne Kessler, who introduced me to an entirely different perspective on scripture. And I was taught by Dan Schantz, who encouraged my interest in being a writer.

And, more importantly, it was at Central that I met – and married – Karen Ward, who has been my wife ever since.

Because of her cousin, Lora Hobbs, we decided to become foster parents, a decision which would come to dominate our lives for decades. Because of my experience with the Christian Campus House at Mizzou, we quickly became involved there after we moved to Columbia. And because of that connection, we eventually wound up leading the CCH prison ministry.

None of which would ever have happened if Jim Dack and my dad had not hit it off during that job interview.

Every day we make decisions. Every decision affects our journey on the one road.

How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Praise be to you, O LORD; teach me your decrees.
With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.
I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.
I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.
I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.

Psalm 119:9-16

Psalm 119:7-8 Upright Rebar

My friend Steve invited me on a mission trip to Mexico in 2007. We were taking a group of 30 college students to a town called Villa Union, where we would spend five days doing a construction project for a small congregation.

Steve told me up front that what he needed most from me was to do a lot of driving (24 hours one way), and to help corral the students and keep them on task. He knew that I wasn't going to be a big help in terms of my construction skills. He'd seen first hand why I said I would be scared for my family to live in a house I built myself.

While Steve, who had extensive experience in construction, supervised what had turned out to be two separate construction projects, he assigned me to jobs that I couldn't hardly mess up. Twisting wire. Moving rocks. Straightening rebar.

It's that last one that turned out to be the most difficult. The Mexican preacher quickly showed us how it was done, turning out three perfectly straight bars in just a couple of minutes.

A day later Steve put me together with three students who were as un-handy as I am, and told us we needed to straighten out some of the supposedly-straight rebar that looked more like a herd of snakes in motion.

I knew that Steve, who could do a job like this in his sleep, was working hard not to be impatient with us. I'd heard him grumble on more than one occasion, back in our real lives, about students who wanted to help but only made things more difficult.

But he patiently took a few minutes, which he did not have, to give us a few tips.

After he had moved on to another task, one of the students in my charge looked at Steve's retreating back and then at me, and said, "We don't know how to do this. He could do in half an hour what it's going to take us the rest of the day to do, and a lot better."

"You're right," I told the young man. "Problem is, he doesn't have time to do it. Everyone else is doing other projects. The four of us don't know how to do much of anything on this construction project, but we're the only ones available  to do this job. So let's do the best we can, even if it takes us all day."

It only took us about three hours. I kept my little team working at it until we had that pile of rebar a little bit straighter than it was when we started.

I will praise you with an upright heart 
  as I learn your righteous laws. 
I will obey your decrees; 
  do not utterly forsake me.

Psalm 119:7-8

God could fulfill his mission much more efficiently without having to use a mess-up like me. But he doesn't give up on me. He lets me learn; he lets me grow.

Developing an upright heart is a process. It's a journey through all sorts of experiences that train me in obeying God. Every step I take involves a choice of moving forward in the direction of God's way or meandering off on a path of my own making. 

But as a redeemed child of God, I begin that journey with a grace-cleaned heart. I'm not on my way to earning the title of "upright". I'm on a journey to work out what God has worked in to me.

He doesn't expect me to immediately do things as well as he would. He just expects me to do.

Psalm 119:5-6 Shame

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

Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.

Psalm 119:5-6

As a dedicated follower of Jesus, Bill knew that he should read his Bible and pray. And so he would set aside time each evening to open up the scriptures and spend time with God.

At first his young wife thought this was a wonderful idea. Bill, a former drug addict, was prone to moods, and perhaps this daily time with God would help him.

But when Bill read the Bible, all he could see, over and over again, was his sin. He compared himself with what he read and understood just how wretched a person he really was. And when he compared his wife to the Bible, he came to the same conclusions.

His nightly devotional time would turn into a nightly bout of ranting and raving, keening and moaning, frightening his wife and their infant daughter.


Another friend of ours, Nicky, was just a baby Christian, with no church background whatsoever.

She wanted to know more about the Bible, so she began to read. But she confessed to us that reading the Bible frightened her.

"I read the Bible and all I see is how much God must hate me."

That's the flip-side of the Bible. It can bless us so much, but one of the blessings is that it's also a two-edged sword, cutting right to the heart of the matter.

I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.  Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.  I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.  For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.

Romans 7:7-11

Bill and Nicky both properly saw their sin more clearly because of God's Word. We all need to be forced to acknowledge the horror of our lives.  That's the starting place for the journey toward being steadfast in obedience.

What a wretched man I am!
Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 7:24-25

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

Psalm 119:4 Wholly Holy

A lot of preachers and members of their flocks have shifted to a view of obedience that is very 21st century. 

In a culture that wants to embrace an anything goes approach to life, it's not surprising to discover many in the church embracing a rules aren't important attitude. I've even said myself, on more than one occasion, that it's important to realize that Christianity is NOT all about a bunch of rules. Because it's not.

And yet, it is, isn't it? 

You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed.
Psalm 119:1-4

David is "so Old Testament", but the importance of obedience is not just an old covenant concept. 

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1:22

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Matthew 7:24

The congregation in which I was raised clung to those absolute commandments of obedience like they were blue ribbons awarded to us simply because we refused to let go of them.

And then along comes Paul, who throws a major theological wrench into the whole discussion about the Law, and its purpose. Are we supposed to focus on obeying the Law? Or does the Law just serve to teach us a lesson?

I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. Romans 7:7-9

Paul says the purpose of the law is to demonstrate how hopeless it is to try to obey. And yet we are indeed supposed to obey the law. 

I used to read these verses and think, "OK, so God is just messing us?"

No, not at all.

He does expect us to be perfect! Jesus says plainly, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48).

And yet we see throughout the New Testament that God knows full well no one will obey the Law perfectly. 

As with many things in Paul's theology, we find ourselves almost on tiptoe, balancing between one truth and another. God leaves us in this position on purpose, because if we were able to achieve a perfect place to stand where we could achieve some sort of status in relation to the Lord, that would be our doing. 

Instead, the Lord wants us to always be aware of our inability to earn that status.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Romans 7:21-25

Psalm 119:1-3 Picture Perfect

Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD. Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart — 
they do no wrong but follow his ways.

Psalm 119:1-3 Aleph

Do you know anyone who fits the description in those verses?

I've found it easy in my life to look at other Christians and believe they're the next best thing to perfect. They seem to have it all together. No spiritual valleys. No hidden sins.

The thing is, the closer I get in my relationship with those people, the more I see the chinks in the armor, the weaknesses. And they see mine.

The two most "spiritually together" mentors in my life were Wayne Kessler and Roy Weece. I learned so much from both of them about how to live a focused life for Christ.

And I also learned from both of them that no one is perfect. As I got to know them not just as mentors but as friends, I saw the sins that so easily beset them. Turns out, their flaws taught me as much as their faith did, because it enabled me to see through them to Christ, whose grace upheld them.

While it's good to have people we can imitate, people to learn from, we shouldn't delude ourselves into putting them up on a pedestal of perfection. When they fail - and they will - what happens to our faith?

It's much better to see them wholly, for who they really are. Their way of dealing with their sins and imperfections can teach as as much as their shining virtues. And when they fail - and they will - we can learn how to fail in our own lives without letting failure be what defines us.

Psalm 119:1-4 People of the Book

Blessed are those whose ways are blameless,
  who walk according to the law of the Lord.
Blessed are those who keep his statutes
  and seek him with all their heart—
they do no wrong
  but follow his ways.
You have laid down precepts
  that are to be fully obeyed.

Psalm 119:1-4

The church I grew up in was part of the Restoration Movement, a non-hierarchical “non-denominational” collection of churches devoted to restoring the church to the way it was in the first century church, along with its first century doctrines and practices. This emphasis grew out of and nurtured an exalted view of the authority and importance of the scriptures.

I learned to love the Bible in that church the same way a fish learns to love the water. The preaching, the teaching, the Sunday School lessons, even the VBS crafts were all aimed at one thing: to totally immerse us in the scriptures.

I learned to view the Bible as as the handbook containing the “pattern set forth”. It was described as the user’s manual for the Christian and for the Church.

“Where the Bible speaks, we speak; Where the Bible is silent, we are silent” was the oft repeated motto of our non-denominational denomination.

The children of the church were taught sound doctrine, as defined by the church. We learned to swear allegiance to sound doctrine – the doctrine as taught by our group, that is. It was always clear that our church was in sole possession of that true truth. The doctrine of other denominations was suspect. Actually, it was more than suspect. It was flat out wrong.

I remember hearing from the pulpit that the only way people could possibly speak in tongues was through the occult.

Failure to partake of the Lord’s Supper each and every week – and only on Sundays - would make you guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

The most renowned evangelist in the world, Billy Graham, was not considered a hero of the faith in our church. He was guilty of misleading thousands of people to believe they could be saved just by reciting a non-biblical “sinner’s prayer”, whether or not they were ever baptized by immersion.

If the Truth was a place, we were already there. Our task was to bring other people to the same place.

I grew up with the sure knowledge that I was blessed to have been born into a family that went to the right church and knew the right things.

Sometime during those years I discovered Psalm 119 and fell in love with it. First of all, it’s the longest chapter in the Bible, which made me feel like it must be one of the most important. Also, the 119th starts off talking about the people of the Bible, which made me feel quite satisfied with myself. I had no trouble equating my knowledge of the Bible with the phrases expressed by David.

TR’s personal paraphrase of the first few verses would have looked something like this:

1 Blessed are they whose interpretations are blameless, who teach according to the law of the Lord.
2 Blessed are they who respect his statutes and study them with all their heart.
3 They misinterpret nothing wrongly; they talk in his ways.
4 You have laid down precepts that are to be fully digested. 

Blessed. That is what we were. Our understanding of the Way was blameless.

How wrong I was.

Psalm 119:1-8 The Journey

Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD.
Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.
They do nothing wrong; they walk in his ways.
You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed.
Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees!
Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.
I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous laws.
I will obey your decrees; do not utterly forsake me.

Psalm 119:1-8

I read those words today and I wonder, how did I, for so many years, miss the point that is so clear? How could I read words like way, walk, observe, and seek, and think they were talking about a fixed point? A place where we had already arrived?

When I first began dating a girl named Karen Ward, now Karen Robertson, she took me to meet her family in rural Pike County, Illinois. We turned off the main highway and headed down a gravel road. Along the way we passed farmhouses and fields.

She had me pull over and stop at what she called the Big Spring. This consisted of a metal pipe sticking out of the side of a large hill. From the pipe flowed a steady stream of water, pouring into a barnyard trough, where the water lapped over the edges. She stuck her face down into the stream of water and took a deep drink, much to my astonishment. To a city kid, drinking water coming from a pipe in the dirt seemed more than a little risky. I took a quick drink, though, not wanting her to think poorly of me.

We continued on about a quarter mile and came to a spot where another road curved off the main road. Since she didn’t give me any directions otherwise, I continued straight ahead, on the main road.

“Stop! Stop!” she cried. “Where are you going? I didn’t tell you to turn off here!”

While I did a neat three-point turnaround, I pointed out to her that I hadn’t turned off at all. I had driven straight ahead. To her it was obvious that the main route followed the curve and not the straight line.

“That road takes you to Uncle Richard’s house, not ours.”

Back on the correct route, we continued, going up the hills and down the hills for what seemed like forever. I began to wonder if we would ever arrive at her parents’ house.

“I didn’t know,” I admitted, “that anyone lived this far out in the middle of nowhere.”

She laughed at that and informed me there were people who lived much farther out that they did.

As the years passed and I met more and more of her friends and neighbors, I discovered this to be true. I rode with her father one Sunday morning as he drove to pick up a young man for church. We wound around the hills and drove through more than one shallow creek until we finally stopped at what seemed a random spot among the hills.

I waited a moment and looked at my father –in-law, who smiled and said to just wait.

Suddenly a young man in overalls stepped out of the darkness of the trees on a steep hill and walked to the car and climbed in.


Several months later I was given the task of driving to their home on my own, to pick her up and bring her back to college. I confessed that I was unsure I would know how to find my way.

She and her family proceeded to give me the directions I would need.

After the Mississippi bridge, turn right at the four-way. Once you arrive in P-Hill, turn at the church and drive up the hill and keep going past the end of the asphalt. Make sure you make way for oncoming vehicles at the Lewises’ crossing. Make sure you stay on the road to Martinsburg and not the road to the Hobbses – you’ll know that curve is coming when you pass the Big Spring and the Joneses house. And if you get to Martinsburg, you’ve gone too far.

Of course I got lost, because I didn’t know the landmarks and the history of the people inhabiting the hills and hollers of rural Pike County.


All of us have a tendency to get lost, even when we think we know the way.

In Psalm 119, David is describing a journey, and he's marveling at how wonderful it would be to have figured it all out and be done with taking wrong turns and stalling out.

Verses 5 and 6 are a lament. He knows the words of the first four verses don't describe him. He has the directions right in front of him, but he still has trouble staying on the right path.

That’s the problem with looking at the Bible like it’s a road map or a GPS. Everything you need is there, but most of it is parceled out as part of the endless stories about how other people have gone down the road before us.

Adam and Eve were given pretty basic directions on how to walk with God in the garden. The serpent, though, showed up like a back seat driver, saying surely that can’t be right.

Samson and David and Solomon all dedicated themselves to following God’s heart in the direction he had laid out for them. Every one of them let themselves be distracted by women and took their eyes off the road.

Saul of Tarsus gave his life over to reading and interpreting the law and disciplining those who fell short of his expectations. It was only when he was on the road to Damascus that he met the author and finisher of his faith and discovered that he and the rebels he was persecuting were all on the same road together.

With them, David cries out to the Lord, I will stay on track. I will, I promise I will. But we all know he won't. We know, because we’ve failed again and again ourselves.

If we’re honest with ourselves we all cry out in anguish with David: Please don't forsake me utterly.

In spite of his failure, David wrote Psalm 119 to express his love for God and for His Word, a love earned and strengthened during the hard journey.

Now in Print: Yes...And

When we jump to conclusions based on appearances, it’s generally because we’ve already made a judgment about people before we even get to know them. Our preconceptions are based on the story we’ve come to believe about “those people” who do “those things.” We’ve bought into the narrative that no, what they’re doing isn’t right, but it’s OK for me to turn my back on them personally instead of seeking and saving the lost. 

We may have blinded ourselves to our no-but approach to people, but those same people most assuredly see that we’re not only saying no to their sin, but to them as well. 

If you’ve fallen into that narrative, try improvising a bit. When we dismissively say no to getting involved in the lives of certain people, the story of their potential salvation comes to a screeching halt. Try listening to where they are in their life story and, with a heartfelt yes-and, nudge their plotline toward faith.

Read more here: http://www.lookoutmag.com/yes-and/

Psalm 119: Love Letters

Would you be able to write 176 statements about your love of God’s Word and your dedication to it?

The Bible has been out of style lately.

There was a time not too many decades ago when most people, even those who weren't really "religious", treated the Bible with respect. They knew a few popular verses and held it in high regard.

Now it seems more in vogue to treat the Bible like a waste of ink and paper.

The really sad thing, though, is that a lot of believers have gotten into the habit of disrespecting the scriptures. Obeying laws is something churches emphasized back in the day, back when theology was king and rules were made to be idolized.

It would do us all good to spend time inhaling the perfumed fragrance of David's love letter. Or should I say letters?

David alphabetized this Psalm. It's as though he was saying, 'How do I love the Word? Let me spell out the ways . . .'

Great peace have those who love your law,
and nothing can make them stumble.
Psalm 119:165