Psalm 119:171 Tell It

I grew up with the sure knowledge that I was blessed to have born into a family that went to the right church and knew the right things. . . If the Truth was a place, we were already there. Our task was to bring people to the same place we were.

That's a quote from People of the Book, the blogpost at the beginning of my three-year-long trip diary through Psalm 119.

No doubt, I was blessed to have been born into a family that taught me to love God and His Word. For all the misdirected teaching and the self-righteousness of the "right church", I was getting a better start on the one road of life than most of the people I've encountered traveling alongside me over the past 60-plus years.

And no, I'm not talking about the "faith-only Baptists" or the "annual-communion heretics." I'm glad to claim many of them as my brothers and sisters and co-workers in Christ.

I 'm talking about the young lady in her 20's who admitted she had never been to church, not even once in her life. I'm talking about the 30-year old woman who admitted that the first time she was sent to prison was the first time in her life she had a bed of her own she could count on to be there each night. I'm talking about the co-worker who gave lip service to faith but had been raised in a streetwise culture of 'grab whatever you can whenever you can'.

Another thing that church taught me was about the greatest mission anyone could possibly have in life. Sure, the way I understood it back then ("our task was to bring people to the same place we were") was condescending and misdirected. But I've never lost sight of the lifelong call to be a reconciler, drawing people toward Christ (not to my church or my personal theology).

All of those people - all the others, the fellow travelers who aren't like me - they're all on the same road, traveling alongside me. They're all heading toward the same destination, whether they know it or not. That doesn't make me better than them. It doesn't mean I should avoid those other people and stick with the travelers who are like me.

My job is to help them all understand why we're all on this road together. If I don't tell them, they'll just keep on thinking we're all just plodding along aimlessly from birth to death.

I can't help them understand unless I'm actively, eagerly, and intentionally walking beside them, helping them along the way.

My job - your job - is to let our lips overflow with praise for the God who is also walking alongside us all.

May my lips overflow with praise,
 for you teach me your decrees.
Psalm 119:171