85 Proud people have dug pits to trap me.
They have nothing to do with your teachings.
86 All of your commands can be trusted.
Liars are hurting me. Help me!
87 They have almost put me in the grave.
But I have not rejected your orders.
88 Give me life by your love
so I can obey your rules. [International Children’s Bible]
I found a few minute while camping with the scouts to fit in today’s meditation on the psalm.
Yesterday I was rueing the fact that so many of the cherished institutions in my life seem to be flailing to find a footing. One of those is the scout troop. Our numbers are way down. The fraction of scouts that attend most camping trips is down. The number of adults who volunteer to camp with us is way down. Our fundraising efforts are less productive. It often feels like the world is caving in.
The second half of this stanza of the psalm picks right up where the first half left off. “The world is caving in around me. The world is telling me to give up… but I haven’t. Lord, give me the strength to carry on.” I SOOO understand that feeling.
Today I watched a six scouts (I told you number were down) worked together to solve a number of challenges as a team. I watched young men exploring the bounds of what they are capable of thinking through and discovering that together they can take on some tricky mental exercises. And… I remembered why this is one element of my life that is too valuable to allow to fail without a valiant fight. I received today a very much needed revitalizing booster.
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