Psalm 119:28 Correcting Your Stride

My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word

Psalm 119:28

If your soul is weary from walking the 1 road of life, it could be you're doing it wrong.

No, I don't mean you're walking in the opposite direction from God's way. I'm talking about how sometimes you're trying so hard to follow God's way that it's wearing you out. Because you're doing it wrong.

I have a degenerative cartilage problem in my right knee. Sometimes the pain in my knee changes the way I walk. My wife is usually the first to notice I'm walking different. But by the time she mentions it, the rest of the my body is noticing the change in my stride as well, because it's throwing everything else out of whack.

So, if your soul is out of whack from trying to live according to God's way, how do you get back on the right path? By correcting your stride.

Maybe you're the type who, when you're soul weary, turns to the Bible to find a verse that will pick you up, that will give you an upbeat religious motto to get you through the days.

You're doing it wrong.

Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on a wound, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.

Proverbs 25:20

What you need is not a pick-me-up verse but to go deeper into the ways of God. To learn anew how to walk on the 1 road rather than trying to driving along it with a heavy foot on the pedal.

• Read the Bible's stories of people who dealt with life altering affliction. Mentally step into the story alongside them and experience life with them. You'll learn what they learned, that there are no pat answers, no easy fixes. There's only picking yourself out of the mud yet again and taking the next right step for God.


• Use your imagination to walk the roads of Palestine alongside Jesus and his disciples while reading the Gospels. Learn to match the stride of the Man of Sorrows as he keeps moving forward through the sorrow and pain, driven by the relentless pursuit of the mission the Father gave him.


• Read Paul's second letter of the Corinthians, where he pours out his heart about the practical ways he chose to find purpose in the pain.


• Read the books of Poetry and walk around for a while to the beat of a different drummer. From Job, absorb a view of affliction that start and ends with a big picture of God. From Psalms, learn to talk to a God who is not made in your own image, but who wants to know you and be known by you. From Proverbs, learn to see God's way and his wisdom as it's worked out in every little part of life. In Ecclesiastes, learn to see life from God's "above the sun" point of view, and to take off the rose-colored glasses and acknowledge the very real struggles of living in the cursed world. Then step into Song of Solomon and bathe in a poetic love song three millennia old and discover not just a pick-me-up verse but a renewed love affair with the God who loves you and wants you to walk through every part of life with him.

“...I fear their false urgency, their call to speed, their insistence that travel is less important than arrival...”

― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking