Wednesday August 14, 2013
Eyring,
in his Vita of Ernest the Pious Duke of Saxe-Gotha, v. 1601, d. 1675,
relates that he sent an unfaithful minister [magistrate] a copy of the 101st
Psalm, and that it became a proverb in the country, when an official had done
anything wrong: He will certainty soon receive the prince’s Psalm to read.[i]
Psalm 101 is known as “The Prince’s Psalm”
because it deals with leadership issues a king will face, particularly that of
leading a life of integrity, blameless as he leads his subjects. Not your problem, you say? Have you considered the fact that we elect
our “kings” in this country every few years?
Of late the track record on “blameless” hasn’t been much to write home
about. But it’s more than just about
elected leaders.
What about the elections at your house?
Walking the straight path of
integrity is hardest at home – that’s where they know ALL about
you! There’s no faking it there! No sense trying to put spin on anything.
The prayer of Psalm 101 is a commitment to
live a blameless life of integrity, but it quickly acknowledges the difficulty
of follow-through, as the writer entreats God:
when will you come to help me?
I like (and despise) that about Scripture. I like it because there’s no fluff, no
wiggle-room to let me off the hook from my responsibility to live a life of
integrity. I despise it because there’s
no fluff, no wiggle-room to let me off the hook from my responsibility to live
a life of integrity. I sometimes want to
pray that God just inject me with Solomon’s wisdom and Job’s integrity and be
done with it. But life is much harder
than that, and so, God continues to work on me.
We may not be kings and queens, but we all
bear the weight of the leadership issue of how our lives affect others. You cannot speak, act or even think without
affecting the lives of others for better or worse. Like so many pebbles (or boulders) thrown in
a still pond, our words, deeds and attitudes cause ripples (sometimes tidal
waves) of consequences.
And it counts most at home.
Today
Get a start on today’s ripples – make them
positive and encouraging for those around you at your house, job,
school…wherever you take yourself today.
[i]
Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament Vol. 5: Psalms, Third
Ed., © 2000, Parsons Church Group, A Division of Findex.com, Inc.
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