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Continuing notes from "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction"
***we made it!***

Chapter 16   Blessing   Psalm 134

pg 184  "In Psalm 120, the first of the Psalms of Ascents, we saw the theme of repentance developed.  The word in Hebrew is t^eshubah, a turning away from the world and a turning toward God; the initial move in a life-goal set on God.  It was addressed to the person at the crossroads, inviting each of us to make the decision to set out on the way of faith.  Each of the psalms that followed has described a part of what takes place along this pilgrim way among the people who have turned to God and follow him in Christ.  We have discovered in these psalms beautiful lines, piercing insights, dazzling truths, stimulating words.  We have found that the world in which these psalms are sung is a world of adventure and challenge, of ardor and meaning.  We have realized that while there are certainly difficulties in the way of faith, it cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called dull.  It requires everything that is in us; it enlists all our desires and abilities; it gathers our total existence into its songs.  But when we get to where we are going, what then?"

pg 185  God shares himself with us - he gets personally involved - generously - graciously.
God stands - foundational & dependable
God stoops - he meets us where we are - we can't get ourselves cleaned up enough to approach him - so he comes to us - this is a demonstration of grace!
God stays - he sticks with us, sharing his life with us in grace & peace

pg 186 Psalm 134 features an "invitational command"  (I like that wording!)  "Come, Bless the LORD..."

pg 187  "Bless the Lord.  Do that for which you were created and redeemeds; life your voices in gratitude; enter into the community of praise and prayer that anticipates the final consummation of faith in heaven. Bless the Lord."

pg 189  "Feelings don't run the show.  There is a reality deeper than our feelings.  Live by that."
pg 190  Luke 15:7 Jesus speaks of the joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, not relief, not surprise - joy!
pg 191-192  The Westminster Shorter Catechism's 1st question -
"What is the chief end of man?"  - this asks us what is the final purpose, the main thing, why are we here?  The answer is "To glorify God and enjoy him forever."  Glorify.  Enjoy.
This book has journeyed through these passages looking at things involved in Christian discipleship and finally arrives at this point - Bless the Lord.  Glorify & Enjoy God in all things.
"Grace and gratitude belong together...(snip) We are so created and so redeemed that we are capable of enjoying him.  All the movements of discipleship arrive at a place where joy is experienced.  Every step of ascent toward God develops the capacity to enjoy."
"Best of all, we don't have to wait until we get to the end of the road before we enjoy what is at the end of the road."

Some final thoughts:  This is the only book I have read by this author and I have heard some criticism of his total theology from some people that I respect.  As I am not God - I have no way of knowing the heart of another person and would not presume to pass judgement on his motives/ideas/etc.  I don't think I found anything glaringly inconsistent with my own beliefs in this book generally speaking.  (I suppose that sounds wishy-washy, but honest at this point as I can't remember every word I read in detail).
I found much instructive and helpful here - I love the visual of life as a journey upwards (hello...blog title!)  I pretty much always consider myself on a journey, following Christ and learning as I travel.  This book gave me pause to consider some things I hadn't previously and allowed me to ponder the long journey that discipleship really is.

Blessings on the journey,

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Continuing notes from "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction"
***almost done... hang in there!***

Chapter 15     Community  Psalm 133

pg 169  "For God never makes private, secret salvation deals with people.  His relationships with us are personal, true: intimate, yes: but private, no.  We are a family in Christ."
I find this idea to be interesting and thought provoking ... and for someone like me, slightly intimidating.

pg 170  Psalm 133 puts, what is said & shown throughout scripture and church history, into words of song - community is essential.  "Scripture knows nothing of the solitary Christian.  People of faith are always members of a community."
Again this is a tough one for me... perhaps it is just the area of the country where I live or my limited exposure to faith communities at large - but here, for me, community is hard to come by in the sense that my soul longs to find.

pg 173  "Living together in a way that evokes the glad song of Psalm 133 is one of the great and arduous tasks before Christ's people.  Nothing requires more attention and energy."
I would add that it is perhaps something that is sorely lacking in a lot of places for precisely this reason.

 pg 175 Quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer ~ "Not what a man is in himself as a Christian, his spirituality and piety, constitutes the basis of our community.  What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ.  Our community with on another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us."

pg 176  "Important in any community of faith is an ever-renewed sense of expectation in what God is doing with our brothers & sisters in the faith."
Ah, perhaps here is part of the key found... that we don't really expect to see God move in our own lives or in anyone else's life.  And we never spend enough time together - talking about God and what He is doing in our lives to know differently.
Shared experience builds community.  If we never share our lives in any real sense, genuine relationships and true community can't be built.  If we are all so fearful of being real with one another that we live in shallow pleasantries and false masks - how can we build 'family' ties that are strong enough to weather persecution or even a minor challenge?

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Continuing notes from "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction"


Chapter 14     Obedience      Psalm 132 

pg 160  "The first half of Psalm 132 is the part that roots obedience in fact and keeps our feet on the ground."

pg 162  "Christians tramp well-worn paths: obedience has a history. This history is important for without it we are at the mercy of whims. Memory is a data bank we use to evaluate our position and make decisions. With a biblical memory we have two thousand years of experience from which to make the off-the-cuff responses that are required each day in the life of faith."

pg 163 "Obedience is not a stodgy plodding in the ruts of religion, it is a hopeful race toward God's promises."

pg 164 "The second half of Psalm 132 takes seriously what God said to David and how David responded. (snip) and uses them to make a vision of the reality that is in the future of faith: (vs 15-18). All the verb tenses are future. Obedience is fulfilled by hope."

pg 165 "Psalm 132 cultivates a hope that gives wings to obedience, a hope that is consistent with the reality of what God has done in the past but is not confined to it."
(snip)
"Christians who master Psalm 132 will be protected from one danger, at least, that is ever a threat to obedience: the danger that we should reduce Christian existence to ritually obeying a few commandments that are congenial to our temperament and convenient to our standard of living."

pg 166 "What we require is obedience - the strength to stand and the willingness to leap, and the sense to know when to do which.  Which is exactly what we get when an accurate memory of God's ways is combined with a lively hope in his promises."

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Continuing notes from "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction"


Chapter 13     Humility      Psalm 131

pg 145  "Christian faith needs continuous maintenance."
Psalm 131 is a psalm of maintenance - a pruning psalm.

pg 146  "All cultures throw certain stumbling blocks in the way of those who pursue gospel realities."  (snip) "The way of faith deals with realities in whatever time or whatever culture."

pg 147-148  A discussion of the story of John Faustus and the way our culture has become Faustian to applause & admiration.  "It is difficult to recognize pride as a sin when it is held up on every side as a virtue, as profitable, and rewarded as achievement."

pg 149  "Our lives are only lived well when they are lived in terms of their creation, with God loving and we being loved, with God making and we being made, with God revealing and we understanding, with God commanding and we responding.  Being a Christian means accepting the terms of creation, accepting God as our maker and redeemer, and growing day by day into an increasingly glorious creature in Christ, developing joy, experiencing love, maturing in peace. By the grace of Christ we experience the marvel of being made in the image of God. If we reject this way the only alternative is to attempt the hopelessly fourth-rate, embarrassingly awkward imitation of God made in the image of man."

pg 150 "Christian faith is not neurotic dependency but childlike trust. We do not have a God who forever indulges our whims but a God whom we trust with our destinies."

pg 153  "We need pruning. Cut back to our roots, we then learn this psalm (131) and discover the quietness of the weaned child, the tranquility of maturing trust. it is such a minute psalm that many have overlooked it, but for all its brevity and lack of pretense, it is essential. For every Christian encounters problems of growth and difficulties of development."

pg 154 "And that is what Psalm 131 nurtures: a quality of calm confidence and quiet strength which knows the difference between unruly arrogance and faithful aspiration, knows how to discriminate between infantile dependency and childlike trust, and chooses to aspire and to trust - and to sing, "Enough for me to keep my soul tranquil and quiet like a child in its mother's arms, as content as a child that has been weaned.""

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Continuing notes from "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction"


Chapter 12  Hope  Psalm 130

p. 133 "To be human is to be in trouble."
"A Christian is a person who decides to face and live through suffering.  If we do not make that decision, we are endangered on every side."
"Psalm 130 grapples mightily with suffering, sings its way through it, and provides usable experience for those who are committed to traveling the way of faith to God through Jesus Christ."

p. 134  The psalmist here sets anguish out in the open, it is voiced in prayer before God - right out there, no holding back.
**How many of us think God isn't big enough to handle our cries?  How often do I pretend to have it together before the Almighty?  How stupid is that?!  I know He knows... what is the point in pretending?
My anguish does not shock him.

"You know, there is an American myth that denies suffering and the sense of pain. It acts as if they should not be, and hence it devalues the experience of suffering.  But this myth denies our encounter with reality." ~Ivan Ilich

p. 135 "The worst thing that can happen to a man is to have no God to cry to out of the depth." ~P.T. Forsyth
The Psalm shows us how to cry out - to face our suffering by bringing it before God - not to hide from it or avoid it - but to face it with faith.

p. 136  Because we have God - who is personal - we have the means to walk on through our suffering. He is with us, involved, caring and loving and absolutely merciful.

p. 136-137 "Eight times the name of God is used in the psalm. We find, as we observe how God is addressed, that he is understood as one who forgives sin, who comes to those who wait and hope for him, who is characterized by steadfast love and plenteous redemption, and who will redeem Israel. God makes a difference." (emp. mine)

p. 137 "And this, of course, is why we are able to face, acknowledge, accept and live through suffering, for we know that it can never be ultimate, it can never constitute the bottom line. God is at the foundation and God is at the boundaries."

p. 138 At the center of the psalm is the direction for participating in our reality - especially when it comes to suffering- the directions say wait and hope. These words are connected to the image of a watchman.

p. 139 "The psalmist's and the Christian's waiting and hoping is based on the conviction that God is actively involved in his creation and vigorously involved at work in redemption. Waiting does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions."
**I think there is also needed a level of acceptance that sometimes we will not know or understand these things - but that God knows is enough for us.

p. 140 "And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion of fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident alert expectation that God will do what he said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let him do it his way and in his time."
** Often - for me - this is the hardest part.  Trusting in God's ways and timing instead of what I think I want and when I want it.

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Continuing notes from "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction"


Chapter 11  Perseverance   Psalm 129

"Patience is drawing on underlying forces; it is powerfully positive, though to a natural view it looks like just sitting it out.  How would I persist against positive eroding forces if I were not drawing on invisible forces? And patience has a positive tonic effect on others; because of the presence of the patient person, they revive and go on, as if he were the gyroscope of the ship providing a stable ground.  But the patient person himself does not enjoy it." ~ Paul Goodman

pg. 122  Isaiah 53 paints a picture of someone extremely - painfully - persecuted and rejected and yet overcoming and righteous.  "The person of faith outlasts all the oppressors.  Faith lasts."

pgs 123-124  "Stick-to-it-iveness. Perseverance. Patience.  The way of faith is not a fad that is taken up in one century only to be discarded in the next.  It lasts.  It is a way that works. It has been tested thoroughly."

pg 125  "The life of the world that is opposed or indifferent to God is barren and futile. The way of the world is cataloged with proud, god-defying purposes, unharnessed from eternity, and therefore worthless & futile." 

pg 126  "The person who makes excuses for the hypocrites and rationalizes the excesses of the wicked, who loses a sense of opposition to sin, who obscures the difference between faith and denial, of grace and selfishness - that is the person to be wary of.  For if there is not all that much difference between the way of faith and the way of the world, there is not much use in making any effort to stick to it.  We drift on the tides of convenience. We float on fashion."

pg 127  "Perseverance does not mean perfect. It means that we keep going."
"For perseverance is not resignation, putting up with things the way they are, staying in teh same old rut year after year after year, or being a doormat for people to wipe their feet on.  Endurance is not a desperate hanging on but a traveling from strength to strength.  There is  nothing fatigued of humdrum in Isaiah, nothing flat-footed in Jesus, nothing jejune in Paul.  Perseverance is triumphant and alive."
      **I really grasp this more fully as I get older... we do not just carry on pitifully in our faith - we are conquerors in our struggles because of Christ and it is His strength that carries us on and sustains us in the battle.

pg 128  "The central reality for Christians is the personal, unalterable, persevering commitment that God makes to us. Perseverance is not the result of our determination, it is the result of God's faithfulness."

pg 129   In Hebrews we see a litany of people who lived by faith - people who centered their lives on the righteous God who is faithful through all things and by this they were able to persevere.  They had steadiness of purpose and admirable integrity - not that they never faltered, failed and sinned, but that by God's faithfulness they learned faithfulness.  Out of this we then read Hebrews 12: 1-2 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

pg 130  Purposes last - Christian faith allows us to build on the organizing center of life - God, in all His righteousness. "Christian discipleship is a decision to walk in His ways... It is the way of life we were created for.  There are endless challenges in it to keep us on the growing edge of faith; there is always a righteous God with us to make it possible for us to persevere."

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Continuing notes from "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction"


Chapter 10:  Happiness   Psalm 128

Blessed are all who fear the Lord,
    who walk in obedience to him.
 You will eat the fruit of your labor;
    blessings and prosperity will be yours.
 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
    within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
    around your table.
 Yes, this will be the blessing
    for the man who fears the Lord.

 May the Lord bless you from Zion;
    may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
    all the days of your life.
 May you live to see your children’s children—
    peace be on Israel.

p. 112   Jesus makes clear that discipleship is not a reduction in what we already are (we are not talking - of course - about that whole sin thing *S*) - rather he will expand our capacities and fill us up with life so that we overflow with joy.

p. 114  "... blessing has inherent in it the power to increase.  It functions by the sharing and delight in life."

p. 115  "We are in a battle.  There is a fight of faith to be waged.  But the way of faith itself is in tune with what God has done and is doing.  The road we travel is the well-traveled road of discipleship.  It is not a way of boredom or despair or confusion.  It is not a miserable groping, but a way of blessing."

p. 117  "everyone wants to be happy, to be blessed.  Too many people are willfully refusing to pay attention to the One who will our happiness and ignorantly supposing that the Christian way is a harder way to get what they want than doing it on their own.  BUt they are wrong.  God's ways and God's presence are where we experience the happiness that lasts."

In re-reading these notes - I am noting the absence of a distinction between 'happiness' and 'joy'.  They are different and that is of vital importance to understand.  JOY is what we are promised in scripture, not happiness.  Though I think that happiness can be a by-product of joyfulness - the two are not always linked.  I can find great joy in doing things that bring me no happiness simply because of my Savior.  I serve a mighty God - I am HIS.  This leads me to joy in all things - regardless of the happiness involved or lack thereof.
There is little happiness in suffering or in doing yucky daily jobs like cleaning or dishes or diapers...but there is joy in these things if they are part of what God has gifted to us in this life for His glory.

Blessings on the journey~

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Continuing notes from "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction"

Chapter 8    Joy   Psalm 126

pg 92  "Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence."   Boy do I like that idea!

pg 95  "Joy has a history.  Joy is the verified, repeated experience of those involved in what God is doing."  This is one I can attest to personally... I find deep joy when I realize that I have been blessed to be involved in something that has Kingdom value.

pg 96  "One of the most interesting and remarkable things that Christians learn is that laughter does not exclude weeping.  Christian joy is not an escape from sorrow." 
Joy is what God gives - not what we work up.
The joy that develops in the way of Christian discipleship doesn't come from feeling good about yourself - it comes from knowing God and seeing that His ways are dependable and his promises true.

Chapter 9  Work  Psalm 127

pg 104  "The main difference between Christians and others is that we take God seriously and they do not."  Or at least we should be taking Him seriously!
Paying attention to God involves a realization that He works.  Genesis begins with this information - He created, He made something, He did something. Genesis 1 is a journal of work by God.

pg 105 Christian discipleship, by orienting us in God's work and setting us in the mainstream of what God is already doing, frees us from the compulsiveness of work.  Our work goes wrong when we become frantic and compulsive (Tower of Babel anyone?) and also when we become indolent & lethargic (Thessalonica).
The foundational truth is that work is good.  Work has dignity: there can be nothing degrading about work if God works (& we know He does). Work has purpose: there can be nothing futile about work if God works.

pg 106  In Christ, we learn to work in a way that does not center around the acquiring of things, but that responds to God and builds relationships. "People are at the center of Christian work."

pg 107 Such work can be done anywhere if we learn to pay attention to and to practice what God is doing ~ in love & justice, in helping & healing, in liberating & cheering.
"Psalm 127 insists on a perspective in which our effort is at the periphery and God's work is at the center."

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Chapter 7     Security    Psalm 125

pg 81  "Better than a city wall, better than a military fortification is the presence of the God of peace."

In all the ups and downs of Israel's history - they are always God's people.  God is there - always - regardless of how we feel or what we choose.  Our security lies in who God IS, not in what we feel.

pg 83  "Discipleship is a decision to live by what I know about God, not by what I feel about him or myself or my neighbors.

Evil is never permanent, it is always temporary.  It may be long in our view, but we have the promise of 1 Cor. 10:13.  God will not allow more than he will allow and He is always faithful and will provide for us.

pg 85  "Discipleship is not a contract in which if we break our part of the agreement, he (God) is free to break his; it is a covenant in which he establishes the conditions and guarantees the results."

Matt 6: 25, 31, 34 - our life with God is secure.

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A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (purchase here)

Chapter 6   Help

Psalm 124  (New International Version) 

 A song of ascents. Of David.

¹ If the Lord had not been on our side—
    let Israel say—
² if the Lord had not been on our side
    when men attacked us,
³ when their anger flared against us,
    they would have swallowed us alive;
⁴ the flood would have engulfed us,
    the torrent would have swept over us,
⁵ the raging waters
    would have swept us away.

⁶ Praise be to the Lord,
    who has not let us be torn by their teeth.
⁷ We have escaped like a bird
    out of the fowler’s snare;
the snare has been broken,
    and we have escaped.
⁸ Our help is in the name of the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

p. 67  God is on our side, God is our help

p. 69  God's help is not a private experience, it is a corporate reality - not an exception among isolated strangers, but the norm among the people of God.

p. 70  Don't hesitate to ask hard questions of teh scriptures - doubts & questions must be asked & wrestled with in the light of disbelief & be overcome by the truth of God so we can believe solidly in the truth of God's word always.  The Psalms show us 'warts & all religion", not just the pretty surface stuff.

p. 74  "In the details of the conflict, the majestic greatness of God becomes revealed in the minuteness of a personal history.  Faith develops out of the most difficult aspects of our existence, not the easiest."

p. 75  "We are traveling in the light, toward God who is rich in mercy and strong to save.  It is Christ, not culture, that defines our lives.  It is the help we experience, not the hazards we risk, that shape our days."

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Chapter 5 - Service            

Psalm 123

To you I lift up my eyes,
    O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
 Behold, as the eyes of servants
    look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
    to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
    till he has mercy upon us. 

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
    for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than enough
    of the scorn of those who are at ease,
    of the contempt of the proud.

p. 57  "A psalm is not a lecture; it is a song. In a psalm we have the observable evidence of what happens when a person of faith goes about the business of believing and loving and following God."

p. 60  We must look up to God to find ourselves in the proper position, the posture of servitude.  This is the beginning - we must realize our position in relation to the Creator of everything.  He is above.  Second comes our expectation in faith - that God means to transform us for our good.  He is the master potter at work on the clay that is our lives - until He has finally shaped a redeemed life - a vessel fit for His kingdom.


p. 63  There is an urgency to serve the Master instead of being enslaved by the things of this world.

p 64  We must learn to use our freedom appropriately - under the lordship of our merciful God.  A servant of Christ is the freest person on the planet.

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 Chapter 4   Worship                  Psalm 122

p 45  There is one sufficient reason for going to church - God.

p 46 talks about worship being the most popular thing that Christians do - I wonder about this -  I  suppose that he may be correct as you certainly see more bodies in church services than you do in bible study groups or serving in a mission context.

p 47  ".. the powerful history - shaping truth that God forgives our sins and makes it possible to live without guilt and with purpose."

p49  worship (corporate) provides a framework for how we are to do life - we know where we stand

p 49-50  worship is commanded in Scripture, we don't worship because 'we feel like it'.  "Feelings are completely unreliable in matters of faith"

"The Bible wastes very little time on the way we feel" ~Paul Scherer,
                                                                                The Word God Sent p166

 p 50  Worship centers us on the Word of God - the decisions of God.
The biblical word "judgement" means "the decisive word by which God straightens things out and puts things right."

p 51  The word "pray" in the Hebrew of Psalm 122 is the same as "ask" as we 'ask' for seconds at dinner or for directions when we are lost.

p 52  "Shalom, peace, is one of the richest words in the Bible"  "It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God's will being completed in us.  It is the work of God that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life."

p 52  Shalvah = security    the root meaning is leisure 
Security of being at home in a history that has the cross of Christ at its center.
"It is the leisure of the person who knows that everything is all right because God is over us, with us, and for us in Jesus Christ."
"It is the leisure of the person who knows that every moment of our existence is at the disposal of God, lived under the mercy of God."

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Chapter 3     Providence           Psalm 121

Times of trouble are inevitable - we will need help.

p.37  A look to the 'hills' ends in disappointment - help comes from the Creator... not the creation.

p 38  "No literature is more realistic and honest in facing the harsh facts of life than the Bible."

p 39  The only serious mistake we can make as Christians is the one Psalm 121 prevents - the mistake of supposing that God's interest in us waxes and wanes in response to our spiritual temperature.

p. 40  "Psalm 121 says that the same faith that works in the big things works in the little things."

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

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  A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson is a study through several Psalms that are known as "The Song of Ascents", specifically Psalm 120 through 134. 

Chapter 2 - Repentance - Psalm 120

p 21  A person has to be thoroughly disgusted with the way things are to find the motivation to set out on the Christian way.
Psalm 120 is the song of such a person - the cry of pain that penetrates through despair & stimulates a new beginning ~ a journey to God which becomes a life of peace.

p 24  "The truth about what is wrong with the world is that I and the neighbor sitting beside me have sinned in refusing to let God be for us, over us and in us.  The truth about what is at the center of our lives and of our history is that Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross for our sins and raised from the tomb for our salvation and that we can participate in new life as we believe in him, accept his mercy, respond to his love, attend to his commands."

p 25-26  Repentance is not an emotion.  It is not feeling sorry for your sins.  It is a decision.  Repentance is a decision to follow Jesus Christ and become His pilgrim in the path of peace.

p 29  Repentance is the first word in Christian immigration and sets us on the way to traveling in the light. It is a rejection that is also an acceptance, a leaving that develops into an arriving, a no to the world that is a yes to God.

In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me.  ~Psalm 120:1
If I am honest - I know that only the Lord will ALWAYS answer when I cry out to Him. 

Psalm 73

A Psalm of Asaph.

 Truly God is good to Israel,
    to those who are pure in heart.
² But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
    my steps had nearly slipped.
³  For I was envious of the arrogant
    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴ For they have no pangs until death;
    their bodies are fat and sleek.
⁵ They are not in trouble as others are;
    they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace;
    violence covers them as a garment.
⁷ Their eyes swell out through fatness;
    their hearts overflow with follies.
⁸ They scoff and speak with malice;
    loftily they threaten oppression.
⁹ They set their mouths against the heavens,
    and their tongue struts through the earth.
¹⁰ Therefore his people turn back to them,
    and find no fault in them.^[a]
11 And they say, “How can God know?
    Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
¹² Behold, these are the wicked;
    always at ease, they increase in riches.
¹³ All in vain have I kept my heart clean
    and washed my hands in innocence.
¹⁴ For all the day long I have been stricken
    and rebuked every morning.
¹⁵ If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
    I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

¹⁶ But when I thought how to understand this,
    it seemed to me a wearisome task,
¹⁷ until I went into the sanctuary of God;
    then I discerned their end.

¹⁸ Truly you set them in slippery places;
    you make them fall to ruin.
¹⁹ How they are destroyed in a moment,
    swept away utterly by terrors!
²⁰ Like a dream when one awakes,
    O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
²¹ When my soul was embittered,
    when I was pricked in heart,
²² I was brutish and ignorant;
    I was like a beast toward you.

²³ Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
    you hold my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
    and afterward you will receive me to glory.
²⁵  Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
²⁶  My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

²⁷ For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
    you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
²⁸ But for me it is good to be near God;
    I have made the Lord God my refuge,
    that I may tell of all your works.

I love the Psalms

This passage is part of a bigger study over at Pleasing To You... she's doing a great job!

I love the book of Psalms... it is big, it has so much for everyone and so much of it is so beautiful.  This passage really spoke to my heart this morning as I am trying to get back on an even stride in my daily life after being away.

Psalm 119:33-40 (NIV)
³³  Teach me, O LORD, to follow your decrees;
       then I will keep them to the end.
 ³⁴ Give me understanding, and I will keep your law
       and obey it with all my heart.
 ³⁵ Direct me in the path of your commands,
       for there I find delight.
 ³⁶ Turn my heart toward your statutes
       and not toward selfish gain.
 ³⁷ Turn my eyes away from worthless things;
       preserve my life according to your word. 
 ³⁸ Fulfill your promise to your servant,
       so that you may be feared.
 ³⁹ Take away the disgrace I dread,
       for your laws are good.
 ⁴⁰ How I long for your precepts!
       Preserve my life in your righteousness.

Photo Credit: My amazing husband