On the Path

Read Psalm 119:9-16.

Last weekend, a group of us from Mount Pleasant attended a rally for Upward Sports in Gurnee, Illinois. I knew generally how to get to Gurnee, though not to the specific place we were staying, so when Jason asked me to drive, I said, "As long as I know where I'm going." He plugged in the GPS, the lady in the box started talking, and we were off. After we had gotten a few miles north of Terre Haute, GPS Lady told me to turn. That was not the way I would have gone, but I knew that the GPS is programmed and designed to calculate the quickest route to the destination first. So we turned. We followed GPS Lady's instructions and made it safely (if not quickly...it was Chicago traffic, after all!) to the destination. Whenever I was asked why I was going a particular way, my answer was the same: "GPS Lady told me to!"

The psalmist, in this the longest Psalm in the book, is extolling the virtues and the wonders of God's law. How can a young person stay on the path of purity? How can a young person stay true to their faith? The psalmist answers his own question: by living according to God's word. And, let those of us who are no longer young take offense at this passage (as we are wont to do in today's culture), let me offer this word: I think the psalmist is focused on young people because he knows the truth of Proverbs 22:6: "Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it." In other words, if the psalmist can convince a young person to stay true to God's word, they will do so for the rest of their lives. Any time we begin walking on God's path, we're a "young person" in the faith, called to the same actions: living according to God's word.

For a good Jewish believer in the time of the psalmist, the Law was a huge collection of statutes and promises, rules and regulations that the brightest among them spent their time teaching to others. Out of a desire to make sure no one stayed off the path, the Pharisee party had developed as a sort of "watchdog group" by Jesus' time, strictly adhering to both the written and the oral law and trying to make sure everyone else did the same. Jesus, however, made it simpler. He summed up the whole law, the whole "way of God," in just a few words: "‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:37-40). The whole path is summed up this way: love God, love others.

When I would get off the main route, of course, GPS Lady would keep telling me to return to the route. I would tell her I was just going to get a drink, or stop to stretch our legs, or stopping to eat dinner (she didn't listen to me!). When she became too insistent, we just unplugged her. That's sometimes the way we treat God's word, as well. When it becomes too convicting, too insistent, too close to the heart of who we are, we unplug it. We ignore it. We let it sit without allowing it to impact our lives. As the psalmist says, we "neglect" God's word. Without GPS, I might be able to navigate some on my own in unfamiliar territory, but I likely will end up lost. I won't end up where I intended to go. I'm thankful for GPS technology when I'm in a place I've never been before, and I'm thankful for the guidance of God's word in unfamiliar life situations. In both instances, using the resources I have been given is the only way I can find my way safely home.