PSALM 119 - What's Your Theme Song?

Remember Your word to Your servant. You have given me hope through it. This is my comfort in my affliction. Your promise has given me life. The arrogant constantly ridicule me, but I do not turn away from Your instruction. Lord, I remember Your judgments from long ago and find comfort. Rage seizes me because of the wicked who reject Your instruction. Your statutes are the theme of my song during my earthly life. Yahweh, I remember Your Name in the night, and I obey Your instruction. This is my practice: I obey Your precepts.  (Verses 49-56)
Italics, mine

What has been the theme of your life? The nexus of your story? What defines your sojourning on this earth? Theme: subject, topic, subject matter, thesis, argument, text, burden, thread, motif, keynote. What fragrance will your life leave on the path you walked?

 My friend, Mary, called me from the grocery store on Sunday. "Were you just in Albertson's?" she asked.

"No, why?" was my response.

"It smelled like you on the wine aisle...in a good way. I smelled your perfume."

Hmm. That's what I want for my theme. That people will be able to tell where I've been...and in a good way. In His wake, Jesus left people different than He found them. Healed, restored, redeemed, loved, forgiven, hopeful, cleansed and ultimately, saved! The phrase in italics above is literally the song in the house of my sojourning. The song my soul sings. Me. The new tabernacle of His Presence. What's being played there today? Last night I was up for a while. It rained. An anomaly here in Southern California. The noise awakened me, then I noticed the song going on in my spirit. Playing in the temple even as I slept. Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us. That we should become the sons of God...that we should become the sons of God. It dawns on me now that is the theme of my sojourning. My adoption. The wonder of it. The fact that God would give entrance into His family to anyone who calls on His name.

Affliction challenges our stories. It's often the antagonist to our moving forward. The stilling of our song. But if the theme of our lives is Jesus and His grace, our song must still be sung. Pain can't define us. Heartache crush us. Confusion can't stop the plot line from its victorious climax. He is our story! He is our song. Only by faith in the many promises of God do we find comfort. Our lives suspended between Heaven and Earth just as Jesus was in His own affliction. "I will never leave you or forsake you." Because Jesus was forsaken for us in the bigger story that is our salvation, we can fulfill our destinies in Him with hope.

Our perfume stinks to some. Smells like death. The martyrs were crushed because there are those who would eradicate the odor of faith. The comfort in this injustice is that God always wins. Always triumphs over the enemy. Even our death is victory. As I write this there are Christians all over the world struggling to keep the song of their sojourn alive in prisons or in covert places of worship. Faith in God and His precepts keep them going. Knowing God. Letting Him live large in our jars of clay. And understanding the theme of our lives isn't our own personal happiness, prosperity, power or prestige. It's higher. Eternal. And the more transcendent our faith the more furious the enemy becomes.

I'd like to think of our lives this way. We are travelers sent from our Father into an alien land. People there don't know Him except for our meeting them on the foreign soil. We've been equipped for the travel. Our Father speaks to us on our interior GPS all the time, guiding and encouraging the sometimes dangerous, often frustrating, trek. Sometimes people give us a place to lay our heads, sometimes people throw us away. What matters is that we know Whose we are and where we are ultimately headed. Driven by purpose, sustained by His Word, we practice, step by step, doing what He tells us to do, as God leads us over, under and through, or ends our journey when we fall into His arms at home. The trip gets sweaty, there are many dips and bumps in the road, but the underlying song is the same: I know my Redeemer lives! May I gather many aimless travelers on my way. May Jesus always be the song of my journey and the theme of my life.
 

PSALM 119 - You Think My Breath is Bad!!!

Lord, show me Your love and save me as You promised. I have an answer for people who insult me, because I trust what You say. Never keep me from speaking the truth because I depend on Your fair laws. I will obey Your teachings forever and ever. So I will live in freedom because I want to follow Your orders. I will discuss Your rules with kings and not be ashamed. I enjoy obeying Your commands, which I love. I praise Your commands, which I love, and think about Your demands.  (Verses 41-48)

Then we will no longer be babies. We will not be tossed about like a ship that the waves carry one way and then another. We will not be influenced by every new teaching we hear from people who are trying to fool us. They make plans and try any kind of trick to fool people into following the wrong path. No! Speaking the truth in love, we will grow up in every way in Christ!
Ephesians 4  italics, mine

There was an amazing barbeque place in Austin, Texas, in the sixties called Shady Grove. It was a favorite date spot for Bill and me when he came down from Dallas on the weekends to see me. He'd already graduated. I, being much younger, was still in school. On an erstwhile Saturday, we ate brisket and sausage, onions and potato salad, and too many pieces of grilled Texas toast and headed off to play tennis. In the car on the way to the courts at the park, Bill said, "Your breath smells bad."

Oh, my gosh! I couldn't believe he'd said that so matter-of-factly. Me, his love. The one whose hand he held. Whose eyes he looked lovingly into. Has bad breath? Here's the thing. Bill reaked of onions from lunch. But did I, in my spirit of gracious acceptance, say anything about that to him? Of course not! I was sweeter than that. "Your breath stinks, too." My loving response. I kinda hated him the rest of the day.

I still don't know the nicest way to tell someone her breath stinks. I worked with a woman for ten years whose breath could knock me over from ten feet away and never said anything for lack of a good way to address it. There's got to be a happy solution to telling the truth.

The obvious problem is that of Bill and me. Both of us were guilty. So if you tell someone the truth about their situation, you become vulnerable to having the same judgment fall back on yourself. Also, there is the matter of hurting their feelings. Making them mad at you. Is bad breath a high enough reason to breach a friendship? How do we speak the truth in love?

The Arizona law that Governor Brewer just vetoed had me thinking about this during the week. The law would've given business owners the right to reject service to gays and lesbians based upon their religious beliefs. For instance, a Christian baker could refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding. Making a law of a religious tenet. I'm not making an effort to engage in the political correctness or incorrectness of the law. But I've just wondered this week how Jesus would address the issue. I really can't imagine Him declining the wedding cake. I don't think He would officiate at the union. But I think we might have found Him at the wedding speaking the truth...being the Truth. Our judgments hammered into the world whose hearts haven't been changed by the grace we've accepted won't bring people closer to Jesus.

On the other hand, God has given us rules, tenets, commands. And the first, and most important of all is to love the Lord, our God, with all our hearts, soul and strength. The second, Jesus said, is to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Again with the heart. One that is given over to Him is also given over to others. We want to tell the truth. To a sister who is in sin. To a brother who is making a huge mistake. To the world who thinks we only do religious stuff in order to lord our righteousness over their heathen souls. How we say what we say makes a tremendous difference. Just as why we say it does. The world won't know Christ from hearts that condemn. Jesus said, "God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world guilty, but that the world, through Him, could be saved (John 3:17)." Who are we, then, to pass judgment? We keep God's laws for ourselves because we love God! Forcing our family rules on the family next door who doesn't even know us is silly.

I'm not supposed to commit adultery, cheat, lie, steal, covet, murder or disobey my parents. My Father told me this. I think what the world sees when we impose Christian life upon them is that we want them to be as miserable as we are. If our attempts are to make the non-Christian conform to rules instead of to Christ, we have only spoken the truth. Without love. If we don't first care about others, we've missed it entirely. Jesus came to save us, eat with us, heal us, pray over us, calm our storms, show us our hypocrisy, touch our leprous fingers and open our blinded eyes. And when Jesus spoke the truth, "You are right to say you have no husband. Really you have had five husbands and the man you are living with isn't your husband. You have told the truth (John 4)," it was because He loved the woman...or man...or child...or me. That adulterous Samaritan woman whom the nice religious women of the community would not even have at their well was the first person to whom Jesus proclaimed Himself as Messiah.

Living for Jesus is freedom for those who have been set free. What He asks us to do isn't bondage, but a reciprocation of His love. Those outside of relationship with Him will best understand why we won't do certain things by our loving responses to them, not by our throwing them away. I can say with Paul that "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God to save those who are lost (Romans 1)." I want everyone to know Him. May I share with the grace and mercy of one whose many sins have been wiped away, with a grateful heart of compassion for those who live each day without my Jesus.

PSALM 119 - It's All Gonna Burn!

Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding that I may keep Your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to Your testimonies and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in Your ways. Confirm to Your servant Your promise that You may be revered. Turn away the reproach that I dread, for Your rules are good. Behold, I long for Your precepts. In Your righteousness, give me life!  (Verses 33-40)  Italics, mine

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as dung (refuse, offal) in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.  Philippians 3

I live near the famous South Coast Plaza mall in Orange County, California. On any given day, it's filled with well-heeled men and women mulling over expensive shoes, imported perfume, splashy diamonds and every other worldly thing imaginable. Outside, their Teslas, Mercedes, Audis and Roll Royces are parked by valet at the entrance by Macy's. It's not unusual to see people whose bodies have been enhanced and altered so that they look younger or, arguably, more beautiful. Pretense is sold for top dollar where I live. It's easy to get caught up in what one doesn't have here. Just as easily as it is to define one's self by all her stuff.

On Christmas several years ago, Bill surprised me with a gift. It was the last present under the tree, as it happened. A ring I'd admired at a jewelry store in Los Angeles. I couldn't have been more surprised. Bill spent his Christmas bonus on it. We all cried because it was just so heartbreakingly sweet. And the ring is, of course, gorgeous! I'm wearing it now. But I lost it for a while. Thought at first that someone had taken it out of our house, which, by the way, I'd turned upside down. Even took the drains apart in the bathroom thinking it could have dropped down into their depths. It just wasn't there! I cried. And cried. For a couple of months it was daily on my mind. Then one day I randomly pulled some clothing out of one of my drawers and heard a clinking on the wooden bottom of it. Curious, I emptied the drawer to find my ring. Tears of joy. Backtracking in my mind to figure out why it was there. I couldn't believe I was reunited with the precious gift I'd lost! Misplaced, really. Caught up with other clothing that lay on my bathroom counter the fateful day it went missing. Bound up in the tee-shirt I'd been wearing and thrown into a drawer. Dear to me more for the sentiment and love it represented than for its actual value, which is considerable.

On the day I asked Jesus into my life as my Lord, I received a priceless gift. Forgiveness of my sins. Which are considerable. A home in heaven which is indestructible.There is nothing at South Coast Plaza that can repair my little heart. Nothing I can buy or sell to correct its many-faceted failings. No guru can make my neediness vanish with a mantra. No evangelist can erase my debts and make me clean by declaring that God owes me prosperity and painless living. I can't buy what Jesus offers. It is a gift. Paid for by Him. Every other thing on Earth is dung compared to my relationship with Jesus. The word is only used once in the New Testament. Paul meant it to be shocking. It refers to poop, of course, but also to offal, the guts of sacrificed animals. What is thrown away and disgusting. If we are looking to Him for worldly gain, we still have our eyes on refuse. Christ is our gain! In Him we lack nothing. Without Him we have nothing of value. Just as the ring is valuable to me because of the love and sacrifice with which it was given, so is the greater gift of my relationship with Jesus.

We need to work. To make money. To survive and give. But monetary gain shouldn't be our life focus. For one thing, we don't take it with us. All my clothes will remain in my closet when I die, my car will be in the garage and my jewelry left for my kids. It can't be what we live for! Life, true life, is knowing God. Created by Him for His purposes on the Earth He formed. How do we think we can live without our connection to God? Filling our hearts and lives with eternally worthless things that somehow have come to give us self worth? It's a lie. It's all dung in the end, when we take our dying breath, and all we are able to do is look around at all the things we will leave behind. It's like Paul wanted us to smell the difference between the fragrance of Christ and the stench of our own reliance on things.

Once again it's a matter of the heart. Always with God, a matter of the heart. Where our hearts are our treasure is. When we understand that God is crazy about us, wants more for us than we can ever give to ourselves, we are free to love Him with abandon. And we are, also, freed from the idea that knowing Him is all about who we aren't...can't be. That reproach the psalmist is talking about. The dread of the rules we'll be under if we draw close to God in a covenant relationship. Make Him all kinds of promises we can't keep. It's when we revere God as our Eternal Father Who gives us parameters, not random rules, that we are freed to live as children, disciplined and watched over. Tenets that work in the order of the universe God, our Father, created. They are good! They make sense! And we obey because we know His precepts give us life! Not death. The rules don't save us! Obeying them is the result of a heart changed by the exchange of a gift. No mall has it. It comes from the hand of God. Everything is of nugatory value compared with it. Nothing is valuable without it. Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life in Your ways!!!



 

PSALM 119 - My Enlarged Heart

My soul clings to the dust. Give me life according to Your word! When I told of my ways, You answered me. Teach me Your statutes! Make me understand the way of Your precepts, and I will meditate on Your wondrous works. My soul melts away for sorrow. Strengthen me according to Your word! Put false ways from me and graciously teach me Your law! I have chosen the way of faithfulness. I set Your rules before me. I cling to Your testimonies, O Lord. Let me not be put to shame! I will run in the way of Your commandments when you enlarge my heart!   (Verses 25-32)

There was a girl in our dorm who was quirky, to say the least. Very skinny, stringy blond hair that hung in uneven curls about her face. Her walk was affected. Not a limp exactly, but she hobbled a little as if she were walking on her toes. Every day Penny did the same thing at exactly the same time. Brushed her teeth. Combed her hair. A little obsessive-compulsive. I was in my freshman year of college, unsure of my own self, wanting to make my mark in the world. My frail Baptist faith was being tested on every front and wasn't standing up too well. I had lots of questions about God...Jesus. I honestly thought I was the first person to ask, "What about the natives in Africa? Will they be saved if they've never heard?" All the seeker thoughts pounding in my head and heart. Unsure of who I was, Penny was anathema to me. Because? Because she loved me. Wanted to be around me. Wanted to walk across campus with me! To my utter shame, I admit I didn't want her beside me. Thought if people perceived her as my friend, they'd think less of me. So, I avoided her. I know. Dismally self-centered. And I was duly ashamed of how I felt.

The year progressed. I didn't much. But the fall semester of my sophomore year, a thing happened. I met Bill Farish, who was a new Christian involved with Campus Crusade for Christ. I also got serious about finding the answers to my spiritual questions. Spent hours in the university library finding extra-biblical references to Jesus. There are, by the way, many, many of them! In the process of going to Christian meetings with Bill and searching out my heart, I felt challenged to ask Jesus to take over my life. Unsteady at first. Didn't want religion again. I'd always loved God. Since I could remember. But He was obscured by all that denominational baggage of my childhood. If Jesus is real, there were a number of things I knew He needed from me. There was even more I needed from Him.

I found myself lying across my bed, alone in my dorm room, saying, "Jesus, if You do still live today, risen and empowering people to live, please come into me." I waited. Then added, "I will know You are real if I can love Penny." I knew my heart wasn't big enough for her. Had only been large enough for my own selfishness until then. I didn't have to wait long for the prayer request to be tested. But the atmosphere surrounding my heart had been charged. I knew it the moment I'd asked Him in. Understood I'd never be the same. The work of the Holy Spirit at the moment of our commitment to Jesus is to swoosh into us just as God rushed into the temple the day Solomon committed it to Him (2 Chronicles 7). I was indwelt. Tearful. Joyful. Content.

My mind had to contain what my spirit was experiencing. It was a dance that had to be coordinated, so as I walked across campus the next morning, I felt completely overtaken in thoughts of Jesus. Energized by the experience of the evening before. In wonder, really. And as I talked about it with the friend walking beside me, I wanted her to know Him, too. I loved this friend so much. Never noticed how blue her eyes were, or how animated her laugh. It was Penny, of course. My first answer to a heartfelt prayer. Loving Penny. Really loving her. Not just putting up with it. Embracing a friendship created by God. It wasn't until she walked one way to class and I walked the other that I was struck by the fact. Quick tears filled my eyes. Jesus does still change us.

In May of that year my grandmother died. I flew home on a Saturday and back to school on that Sunday because we were in the midst of final exams. Nothing was opened on Sundays in Texas back in the day, so I was surprised to see a huge bouquet of flowers in my room when I arrived late on Sunday night. They were from a local florist. Had a sympathy card attached, but no name was on it. I asked all my closest friends. Wanting to find who to thank. No one knew anything about the flowers. It wasn't until the next morning that I discovered the giver. Penny. She'd heard about my grandmother. Wanted me to know she loved me. Penny. The enlargement of my heart.


 

PSALM 119 - Need To See a Counselor?

Deal bountifully with Your servant that I might live and keep Your word. Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law. I am a sojourner on the earth. Hide not Your commandments from me! My soul is consumed with longing for Your rules at all times. You rebuke the insolent accursed ones, who wander from Your commandments. Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept Your testimonies. Even though princes sit plotting against me, Your servant will meditate on Your statutes. Your testimonies are my delight. They are my counselors.   (Verses 17-24)

And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor.....  Isaiah 9

The counselor sitting before me had blond hair worn straight against her hollow cheeks. She wore an argyle sweater, a long skirt and sensible shoes. Her voice was quiet. Her questions on our first meeting were designed to get to know who I was. It felt inane to me. The lighting in her office in downtown Long Beach, California, was dim. It caused her to fade into the walls as her voice trailed off in deference to mine. I needed to talk. I'd determined not to cry. But there was so much roiling in my gut. So much hurt. Some I caused. Some was the unavoidable detritus of another's decision. And I blew up. Almost literally. A messy bursting of an inner abscess. I returned to her office only once after that. Not because I didn't think I needed more help, but because I understood the deeper need of my heart. To be healed. And for that, I needed my Counselor.

For months and months thereafter, I lay on the carpet of my living room floor and poured out a mixture of repentance and wrath. The death of  my mother amidst the revelation of my father's pedophilia and arrest had long been left insufficiently dealt with. Instead of working through it at the time, I just moved on. Had lots to accomplish. No time to examine my heart in the aftermath. And it was just too painful to look at. Until I did. And by then, I'd added my own mistakes to the cauldron.
Each day, when I'd vomited up the aching in my heart, I would pick up the Word. It was my "necessary food," as Job said. It was uncanny how the Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah and the Gospels met my specific prayer needs. I was in daily conversation with the Wonderful Counselor. I remember asking very pointed  questions in my prayer time that were answered exactly in my time with the Bible. God couldn't have answered more specifically had He been physically in the room with me. I began placing the date He spoke to me in the two Bibles I literally wore out in my need. On the page, next to the verse that became God's answer to me, I'd also take note of His response in my own words. For example, on March 17, 2001, so repentant and needy, I didn't understand how God could still love me. How I was ever going to get my heart straight. Isaiah 44:22: I have swept away your sins like a big cloud. I have removed your sins like a cloud that disappears into the air. Come back to Me because I saved you. I love my Counselor!

I was weary of trying to save my earthly father. Of trying to deal with his stuff. I worked hard at trying to understand what he needed in the aftermath of his sin. And in the fray, always were my mother's last words about having wasted her life on her husband. Feeling duped. It bothered me she was sure her life didn't count for anything. A specific thing I needed to address with the Counselor. His answer on April 23, 2003, came from Isaiah 49: Before I was born, the Lord called me to serve Him. The Lord named me when I was still in my mother's body...But I said, "I have worked hard for nothing. I have used all my power, but I did nothing useful." But the Lord will decide what my work is worth. God will decide my reward.

May 5, 2003, I was reading through Proverbs. Hungry. Thirsty. "My child, pay attention to My words. Listen closely to what I say. Don't ever forget My words. Keep them always in mind. They are the key to life for those who find them. They bring health to the whole body. Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life!  Don't use your mouth to tell lies. Don't ever say things that aren't true. Keep your eyes focused on what is right, and look straight ahead to what is good."  Proverbs 4, italics mine.

We don't belong here. The wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. His kingdom isn't run like this one. God's laws are higher, just as His thoughts are. But the wondrous thing is, we have an entire book telling us His ways. Teaching us how to live not only in this kingdom, but also in the next. The Word of God is living, powerful, able to pierce all the way into our bone marrow and change us (Hebrews 4). "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who is able to teach Him?" But we have the mind of Christ (2 Corinthians 2). Available to us through the His Word by the power of His Holy Spirit. When we pick up the Bible, we are conversing with the God of All Who wants to talk to us from His heart. Who could possibly resist that?

PSALM 119 - Fish Gotta Swim...

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to Your word. With my whole heart I seek You. Let me not wander from Your commandments! I have stored up Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You. Blessed are You, O Lord! Teach me Your statutes! With my lips I declare all the rules of Your mouth. In the way of Your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on Your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in Your statutes. I will not forget your word.  (Verses 9-16)

Each man is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.  James 1
Italics, mine

For Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, the directive was clear. You can have all you want from every tree in the garden...except one. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This from a God Who wanted to spare them being enticed by their own desires. The duo saw it daily...the forbidden tree. Never thought to eat from it until the day the lovely serpent hissed..."Come over here..." And they looked. And listened to the lisping lies that said God was not good. Wanted to hide something from them. Go on...taste it! You will not die.

The rest is history. From way, way back. Just one bite. Just one taste of what we've been told we can't have. It can't hurt to try it just this once. And some of us have stored up God's word and precepts in our hearts. Like Adam and Eve, have walked with Him for a while and still reach for a taste of the forbidden. Like there's something good that God is keeping from us in the evil He withholds.

I remember when I was first learning to drive. One of the first things my father told me was to keep my eyes on the road ahead. Don't look to the right or the left because if I did I might veer in the direction my eyes wandered toward. I held to that rigorously because I didn't want to die in a wreck! Having my eyes look in the correct direction saves my spiritual life, too. Taking them off was a train wreck! God expects us to be intentional about looking at Him. He is intentional about watching over us! We make the decision to keep our eyes on the prize. Determination to save us was the thing that took Jesus to the cross. He kept His eyes on the joy set before Him. Our salvation. It drove Him. Kept Him up nights. Gave Him victory over Satan.

Good question. "How do we keep our lives pure?" First, Guard it! Stand watch over what goes in and out! Say "No!" to anything that might corrupt it. Chase down the enemy who would tear down its walls. Soldier your life! Know the orders. The commandments that barricade us against principalities and powers. Know the Commander! Trust the wisdom of His words. Next, Give your whole heart to the pursuit. Not half-way living your spiritual life. Always wondering if there's not something better out there. I heard a young Christian woman say not long ago, "Yes, I'm a Christian, but I dabble in other stuff, too. You know, to cover all my options." There are no other options! Her life is compromised because of this. And it shows. The wandering eye of a child of God is just as lethal as the wandering eye of an adulterer. We will eventually be led away. Thirdly, Know what God says. Adam and Eve were fooled into believing a lie. "God didn't say you would die." Satan twisted what he knew was the truth. Went on to accuse God of wanting to keep something good from the man and his wife. If we haven't learned in our hearts the truth of God's Word, we'll be tricked.

We all need parameters. God made us that way. The wonderful thing about the ones that He establishes for us are that they are for our good and for His glory. He didn't just make up a bunch of stuff to test us to see if we'd follow. We did that later! Created religion. But that's not His idea. Just like fish are made to live in water, birds were created to fly and earthworms live to dig in the earth, we are created to have fellowship with God. That's where we thrive, not just survive! When knowing Him becomes the richest experience of our lives, we are happiest when we do what He wants. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5).  I don't want to stomp off from God every time I'm required to choose Him instead of what my own flesh wants, harrumphing and moaning about how hard it is to walk the narrow way. Grumbling about all I'm missing as a Christian in the carnival this world is. That is what religion stirs up in us. Relationship with the Father Who loves us beyond anything we can imagine...saw us as His future joy while His Son  hung bleeding on a cross...is supposed to make us realize we do what God wants out of sheer devotion and unwavering reciprocal love.

Oh, God, make my heart beat to say, "What is it you require of me today so I can show You that I love you more than anything!"

PSALM 119 - Follow the Leader!

Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord! Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in His ways! You have commanded Your precepts to be kept diligently. Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping Your statues! Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all Your commandments. I will praise You with an upright heart, when I learn Your righteous rules. I will keep Your statutes. Do not utterly forsake me! (Verses 1-8)

When I look at these words, I automatically recoil. I am not perfect. Even in the middle of the night last night I awoke wishing I hadn't done or said many of the things that took me two steps backward yesterday. Not the big stuff anymore, thank God. But I took my eyes off Him for a minute. Turned a page of my life and looked back, like Lot's wife. Heard my God say, "She who puts her hand to the plow and looks back isn't worthy of the kingdom of God." (Luke 9)  It was a reminder, not a condemnation. But still. What is back there? Leeks and onions of my slavery. That's all. And it's an insult to God that any of us should desire anything from which He has delivered us. But I'm pretty sure I'll never be one of those "who do no wrong." As much as my heart wants to trust and completely obey, I know me. I'm going to slip up. I need grace!

So what do I do with this psalm today? How does it instruct my heart? This I do know. I love my God. With all my heart. I love Him imperfectly, but I can't breathe without Him. And I know I want with all my heart to always keep God's laws. To consistently have my eyes on Him, focusing there, where my life's fulfilled.

Jesus was walking along a dusty road with His disciples when one of them said, "I will follow You wherever You go!" Surely the man was overwhelmed by the nearness of Jesus, the miracles, the wisdom of His parables, the compassion that healed the sick and raised the dead. What it must've been like to touch His hand and hear His laugh. To feel the frothy waters of a quieted storm at sea drip from the man's face as he marveled that Jesus stopped even crashing waves. Out of the abundance of the man's admiration he exclaimed his pure devotion.

"Really?" Jesus stopped. Looked him in the eye. "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." It wouldn't be easy. No closure. Open ended days and nights that might look like they are pointlessly inane. Punctuated by praise or blasphemy. I have no specific place to be here on Earth, in other words. It's not My home.

Onto the road comes another man. Jesus sees something in him. Says, "Come. Follow Me."
But the man replies only that he must wait until his father dies. Then he'll have the freedom to follow God. I'll do it someday. Get my life right. Too busy just now. "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God!" The spiritually dead. They will lie in a heap. They have all decided to choose something instead of obedience to Me. Jesus knew a lame excuse when He heard it. The busyness of life trumping taking the road He chooses.

"I will follow You, Jesus!" Yet another awed by the Son of Man.

"Come, then!" Jesus waves the man over. Welcomes him into the group.

"Just one thing." The man looks back down the road from which he came. "I've gotta say good-bye to my family." Couldn't commit quite yet. Couldn't look Jesus in the eye. "I'll catch up later!"

Isn't it looking Jesus in the eye when we say we will follow Him that seals the deal? Focusing on the glance that waits to see if we really mean it? And He knew...back then...we didn't have it in us to be more than sandal-clad sojourners. Not without the Spirit. "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing."

The risen Jesus spoke to Peter and John in John 21. Told Peter how he'd die for his faith in Christ. "What about John?"

"Peter, if I let John live until I come again, what's that to you?" Eyes locked on the face of one who betrayed Him in frailer days. "You follow Me."

Our directive today. To love Jesus with all of our hearts and follow Him. He's not going to keep us from going to funerals or from saying our good-byes. But Jesus does demand that we don't do those things instead of following after Him and His precepts! I think that's why the psalmist ends this stanza with, "Don't utterly forsake me!" We aren't that good at following, though with all our hearts we want to be perfect! I am thankful today for this promise: "I will never leave you or forsake you (Joshua 1:5; Hebrews 13:5)." Help me, Savior, to promise that to You in return!