Thursday, October 28, 2021

 

Thursday, October 28, 2021

Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the Lord.  Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts.  They do not compromise with evil, and they walk only in his paths.  You have charged us to keep your commandments carefully.  Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees!  Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands.  As I learn your righteous regulations, I will thank you by living as I should!  I will obey your decrees.  Please don’t give up on me!  Psalm 119:1-8

If you’ve ever had a peek at what’s underneath the keyboard on your laptop you have some concept of how complex and powerful are the devices that are the shapers of lives and worldview these days.  If you’ve seen a microchip, the little silicon-based brain of the computer, you have glimpsed a model of your brain, and a grand overlay to understanding the simplicity of faith.  You have the perfect metaphor for understanding what the Psalmist wrote about the integrated life.

Living a life of integrity in God’s world is not just a good idea, it is commanded.  God charges (or commands) those who would be approved in Heaven with having a daily integration of their thoughts, heart-felt desires, and actions all synced with Scripture.  Let’s see if we can open that metaphor’s motherboard and see what the Psalmist was saying to 21st century minds.

The integrated circuit (or chip) is the basis for how a computer’s function serves to tie information strands together.  If there is a breakdown, or mis-match, the error messages will cover your computer’s screen view.  It’s not a happy time.  I say this from much frustrating experience.

In the same way that a computer with a virus is destined to degrade and eventually return to the plastic scrap heap, a life that is not integrated with the Creator’s design will come unglued.

The Psalmist ties together joy and integrity.  Much like the satisfaction you feel when your computer turns-on, boots-up, and works like it was created, so the human creature is designed by the Father to operate in the realm of God’s law and love.  Compromise with evil is to corrode the system.  Searching for God’s ways (in God’s Word) is paying careful attention to the owner’s manual.  If you don’t do that the “garbage-in/garbage-out” paradigm will be fully realized.

The tie-together of this metaphor (and our relationship with God) is humility.  At  the close of this passage (verse 8), the Psalmist prays:  Please don’t give up on me.  This is much like depending on updates for your software.  As conditions change, and spyware gets more creative to invade the integrity of your computer equipment, so the enemy of Heaven is always on the prowl[1] to destroy your walk with God.  A daily walk with Christ is like a computer software update, correcting that which has wandered, instructing that which has been asleep, and recharging the spiritual batteries.

For You Today

Three times in this Psalm the writer uses a phrase that gives us a key to living a joyfully-integrated life; he says I WILL.  Power to live that life is always a matter of God’s grace, the gift of love.  But that power never comes to those who do not choose to accept it.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!   

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©    


 

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