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.
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.
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.
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