How Embarrassing!

You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees! Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.  (Psalm 119:4-6)

          To play off of what I wrote yesterday about the blessing of opening doors the way they open, today’s passage is the way life tends to go, at least for some of us. We walk up to the door and push or pull, and nothing happens. We try again. We peer along the gap between the door and door frame, trying to see if the door is locked, and look all around, including at the store hours, wondering why the door won’t open. We try again before we finally see the instructions under the hours, or near the handle saying to do what we haven’t done and work with the laws of physics, pulling or pushing in the direction that will open the door. All the while, we are hoping that no one has seen us, but as nature would have it, we’re pretty sure that we’ve made it all the more obvious because our face has turned red. Oh, that our ways were steadfast in opening doors the way they’re designed to be opened. It might only be a mistake on our part, but when things don’t work and we discover we’re the ones who were wrong, or foolish, or whatever, it’s embarrassing (at least.)

          If we shift once again to the realm of morality, it’s nearly the same story. We try to be good. Then something comes along we start tugging when we should be pushing, taking when we should be giving. We look for all the reasons it’s the “door’s” fault. Only instead of blushing and doing it right when we notice the instructions, try harder to open the door our way. We grow angry, or fearful, or resentful at the door. We demand that God and everyone else make the door open the way we want. Or, we repent and move on. And when the next door, or the tenth door, doesn’t open, we may find ourselves echoing the psalmist. “Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying the decrees written on the door! Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all the doors in my life.”

          And we will do no more than mention the doors that open left-handed versus right-handed, or the stores that want to force us to be British and travel in the “left lane” to enter and exit. The point is that when we try to do things the wrong way or insist that they be done our way, we can have no peace and no blessing. If we allow ourselves to continue down that path, it should not surprise us when our difficulties increase.