“
What is it that you value? I mean truly, value? What is it that makes the top of your list? Might it be family? Not hard to imagine. Career? Definitely a top-spot contender. Your health? The more philosophically inclined might go that way.
Well, about four hundred pounds ago (give or take a pound or two) I might have said that the most important thing to me was being an athlete, specifically, a football player. Anything that helped me in that pursuit was all to the good. Little else mattered. I woke up early to run; back home, from either school or work, I’d run some more and add in exercises and drills. I immersed myself in the intricacies of the sport by reading books, studying film, and watching games, both on television and live. The dream, the hope of football so radicalized me that I structured the very minutiae of my life in its apprehension. My mother says that football held me so in thrall that in the days approaching a game, I became a different person, banging on the walls of our home and barking at and roughing up my little brothers. Football was my focus, the center around which I built my life. Have you ever been so consumed by something or someone so completely that the very structure of your life changed?
It is not hard to imagine that David, the man after God’s own heart, not answering yes to that question. A reading of Psalm 16 reveals a man who is enraptured by the Lord. Though far from a perfect man (who is?) David’s love, devotion, and sense of satisfaction with the Lord and His promises are palpable throughout the eleven verses, and I highly recommend a close reading. Just be sure not to make the same mistake that I have made in the past, of misunderstanding verses like 16:8, and others like it. Psalm 16:8 reads in part, “I have set the Lord continually before me (all of the italics are mine).” The King James version uses the word “always” versus “continually.” Previously, I would read verses like it and “keep alert at all times” (Luke 21:36), or “keep watching and praying” (Matthew 26:41), or “pray without ceasing” (1Thessalonians 5:17) and I would despair, for I felt incapable of what seemed to me a kind of unswerving vigilance. I am but corrupted flesh. I often felt guilt and shame when confronted by these examples disciplined attentiveness. Though I played the part of the devout, mature, Christian minister while amongst others, and made sure that I said and did all the right, Christian things, on the down low, I felt more akin to the infamous whited sepulchers Jesus references in Matthew 23:27, looking good on the outside but rotten on the inside.
My mistake was that I had overlooked the most basic truth: God knows who we are. I had elevated the godly men and women of the Bible in my mind above their station. They are, like me, of flesh and bone, no more capable of perfection than I. He knows that we are flawed. David’s sense of peace concerning his relationship with the Lord was not rooted in his perfection. Common sense demands that David was not thinking of the Lord when he took Uriah’s wife Bathsheba to his bed while the faithful soldier was on the battlefield. And the Lord had to be far from his thoughts when, to cover his previous misdeed David arranged to have Uriah killed. He could not have had the Lord “always” on his mind. The truth is that no one could. A little digging gets at the true meaning of the verse, that, in this context, one should understand that David constantly turned his mind to the Lord. That, despite the distractions of life and the disruptions of sin, he kept himself turning to the Lord. David was a man after God’s own heart because even when he went astray from the Lord’s will he always returned, and always reordered his priorities to bring the Father front and center. Not only was it in Him that David sought protection, but it was in Him that David felt safe, secure, and satisfied. David knew, his shortcomings notwithstanding, that as long as he returned to the Lord, as long he sought relationship with Him the Lord would never forsake him. Yes, the Lord demands perfection, but He does not expect that of us. That perfection is covered in the person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and if we will seek to keep him at our center, alert to the sway of the times, and let Him guide us through the muck and the mire He will discover the path of life for in His presence fullness and joy.
Recent Comments