Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: introspection

  • Psalm 119:121 – Don’t Let Them Get Me!

    Psalm 119:121 – Don’t Let Them Get Me!

    I have done what is just and right,
    Don’t let my oppressors get me!

    My translation is a little more informal today. I get to do that since I’m not writing a translation of Psalm 119, but rather meditating on each verse.

    Do you sometimes feel like people are after you? I do!

    But for me it’s not people who are enemies or oppressors. It’s friends, clients, and customers, and even potential candidates for one of those relationships.

    I recall coming in a few days ago and telling Jody, “I could deal with people not needing me any more.” I had been answering computer questions, Bible questions, and questions about publishing for a couple of hours and hadn’t been able to get away from my phone and computer screen even for a moment of thought.

    When that happens, I start to wonder if I’m giving people useful answers or even understanding their questions. I begin to wonder if I’m giving the right person the answer. I come to a point where it’s imperative that I ignore the phone, the emails, and texts for a period of time and reorient myself.

    Not one of those people were actually enemies. They were, in fact, all people whose relationship I value.

    I wonder how often we drive ourselves, or more precisely I drive myself, to these lengths, not by what others expect of us but by our own unrealistic expectations of our own performance. I know at the moment that there are many things that it would be good for me to get done that I can’t. I am a caregiver as well as carrying on my business and doing some ministry work apart from that. That means some things don’t get done.

    I think our verse refers more to an appeal to God for protection based on one’s efforts to do right, protection from those who are hostile.

    But what about protection from friends? No, that’s not really it. How about protections from myself? Lord, don’t let me fall into my own oppressive hands!

    Yep, I’ve strayed from the verse, but I can’t resist another note advocating meditation. For me, the time when God speaks to me is when I’m meditating on a passage of scripture, and sometimes that meditation leads me well away from the direct meaning of the verse.

    Over the last few weeks I have more and more frequently been telling people that I can’t answer right now and then setting a time when I can. And you know what? Nobody has gotten upset about it at all. They’re all willing to work with me in order to fit their particular questions/needs into my schedule.

    Who is the oppressor? I am.

    Lord, deliver me from me!

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI, and very slightly edited by me.)

  • Psalm 119:119 – Scorn

    Psalm 119:119 – Scorn

    You hold in scorn all the wicked of the land,
    therefore I love your testimonies.

    I will confess that the lasts several verses seem to have given me less elevated thoughts. Holding people in scorn often sounds like a pretty good idea. How can those idiots do such stupid things. Not just wicked, but stupid! God is right to be scornful of them!

    At this point, I recall something I say all the time about teaching an preaching: Be sure to target the text at yourself before you target it at others.

    There’s a second issue as well. Why is it that I read this text as one of the good guys? Now you might quickly say that the author is speaking as one of the good guys. I’m not so sure of that. He frequently invokes God’s aid, and as I’ve done a few times thus far, I can point to verse 176 – “I have gone astray like a lost sheep …”

    Now I imagine there’s a sense in which the psalmist does regard himself as one of the good guys. He is, after all, one of God’s chosen people. He has God’s Torah with statutes, testimonies, commands, and yes, the stories of God working with the people. So he’s in the family. That’s one thing. At the same time, he has shown considerable awareness of shortcomings, and of his need for God to work with and on him in dealing with those.

    So we could view this verse in a completely different way. Not a condemnation of “them” and a congratulation of self, but rather as an accurate observation. God doesn’t look well on the wicked. The very laws of nature tend to punish those who will not cooperate. But the way the psalmist is advocating for avoiding this is love for God’s testimonies.

    I suspect this latter has a great deal to do with what the Psalmist is saying. And one of the elements I see in the use of “testimonies” here is that look at how God has acted.

    To reference another Psalm I love, Psalm 78:

    He established a decree in Jacob,
    and appointed a law in Israel,
    which he commanded our ancestors
    to teach to their children;
    that the next generation might know them,
    the children yet unborn,
    and rise up and tell them to their children,
    so that they should set their hope in God,
    and not forget the works of God,
    but keep his commandments;
    and that they should not be like their ancestors,
    a stubborn and rebellious generation,
    a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
    whose spirit was not faithful to God.

    Psalm 78:5-8 (NRSV)

    I think Psalm 119 as a whole is doing precisely this.

    What will you pass on to the next generation, whether biological or spiritual?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI and edited slightly by me.)