Psalm 119: צ Tsadhe(a)

137 You are right and you do right, God;
    your decisions are right on target.
138 You rightly instruct us in how to live
    ever faithful to you.
139 My rivals nearly did me in,
    they persistently ignored your commandments.
140 Your promise has been tested through and through,
    and I, your servant, love it dearly.  [The Message]

 

I think one of the challenges I have been having in fully embracing this psalm is how it keeps coming back to the us/them mentality.  God loves “us”.  God puts “them” in their place.  And we love and fear him for it.  But interspersed with this has been nuggets of wisdom/insight that have gotten me through.  Today is no exception. I could take or leave most of today’s four verses.  But I find myself pulled toward the first one—more specifically, the first part of the first verse, “You are right, … God.”

For quite a while now, I have been quite clear that my faith journey has brought me to a place where I find beliefs to be a stumbling block to faith.  Once we lock ourselves on a set of beliefs, we close ourselves to the possibility of discovering more/deeper understanding.  Once we lock ourselves on a set of beliefs, all who do not share them with us are part of the “them.”  When pushed, I will nearly almost always respond, that I believe nothing about God.  More specifically, I hold no beliefs about the nature or history or mind of God.  The only belief that I still hold on to (and it’s actually more of a definition or litmus test than a belief) is that God is Love.  But today, I will accept the corollary that God is Right.

Where do we see God in the world?  We see him where right prevails over wrong, where justice prevails over injustice, where love prevails over hate.

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