“I said, ‘I will guard my ways, lest I sin with my tongue, I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle, while the wicked are before me.’
I was mute with silence, I held my peace even from good; and my sorrow was stirred up. My heart was hot within me; while I was musing, the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue:
‘LORD, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am. Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths, and my age is as nothing before You; certainly every man at his best state is but vapor…’
Selah
Psalm 39:1-5
In this, what I call a season of evaluation for me personally, I would definitely find it ideal to follow as the Psalmist prescribed – that is, to guard my ways. However, even before I get to guarding and eventually evaluating where I’ve been, where I am, and where I aim to go, I suppose I would probably be helping myself a little more by staying in silence, first and foremost.
In my thinking of evaluation I am reminded of how I could not shake away meditation. For apparently it is in silence that the volume of the glory of God is brought up a notch – or two, or three, four or five… Or, I’m thinking – rather, wondering – is the silence there to stir my sorrow up, just as it was mentioned, just so that my heart heats up until it bursts into flame? Is it in meditation that I would be riled up, just as much as people would claim that we should calm down?
I couldn’t think of a direct answer to that, but what I do know is that no matter how I end up through the silence – calm, or energized – the end result is always guaranteed to be me in absolute humility. No matter how the method of meditation makes us, or where it takes us, we are ultimately brought to a point (well, at least those of us in the body of Christ) where the only sensible course of action would be to call upon the name of the Lord, if only for us to be reminded of our frail and finite state, which remains a fact we are to live with as long as part of our being still resides in this fallen reality.
In our evaluation, let us be brought to meditation – or was it the other way around? Well, either way, let us expect to be brought to eventual silence. And in the silence, let us intentionally take in the Truth – that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is literal Power and Wisdom. It is before His everlasting power that the fact of our frailty is brought into our minds. And it is before His infinite peace and knowledge that we recognize how our lives and all our years are certainly ‘nothing before (Him)’.
It’s all so humbling to think, to evaluate, and to eventually meditate on precisely what the Psalmist shared – that every one of us, in spite of all we have achieved and all that we have endured, as individuals and as groups, and as the entire human race – That even at our best, at the pinnacle of all we see, hear, touch, feel and do, we are nothing but vapor.
At around this time I am led to remember that one old yet wonderful song which I believe was a breakout song of sorts for the worship band Casting Crowns. It’s as the chorus goes, for all of us… but apparently the song even gives us a little more credit. For see, after reading Psalm 39:5, we realize we are far less than flowers quickly fading. We’re also actually far less than waves tossed in the ocean… because it’s spot on where they sing that we are actually vapor in the wind – Yes, before a mighty God whose power knows no limits or borders, and before an all-knowing God whose wisdom knows no beginning or end – we ARE mere vapor in the wind.
And I suppose in this exercise of humbling ourselves we are brought to realize that it’s actually less than that and more of us really being in awe and wonder of who God is. In our evaluation and meditation I suppose it is but natural for us in the Body of Christ to realize that these ‘ways’ (as mentioned in verse 1) we guard for ourselves are nothing, as we are nothing before our great and mighty God… Yet we do not flail our arms in abandon or surrender, more than we just cast everything aside in humility, giving way for our powerful and wise God to minister to us in His greatness and goodness.
Much as I can be overwhelmed by all that is before me now, personally, I choose to see it all in the light of me being humbled by the sheer greatness and goodness of our God, as seen and demonstrated by no one else, by no less than Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son.
My ways give way to THE Way, who is also MY Truth, and MY Life. It is in Christ that I give up all concerns, in Christ I unload all my burdens, and in Christ that I just… enjoy.
“And now, LORD, what do I wait for? My hope is in You. Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me the reproof of the foolish.”
Psalm 39:7-8
Thank you, my friend, for making it this far. I pray that you have been blessed, and I pray that you have been ministered to by the Holy Spirit. Granted, I may be here and there when it comes to any point I have to share, but I do thank you for your patience anyway. I am, indeed, humbled that you are still reading this.
May our Lord just continue to minister to us in His perfect love and grace, as we continue down the second half of this week.
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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