Hard Lesson Are The Best Kind

“Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness. Quicken me, O LORD, for thy name’s sake: for thy righteousness’ sake bring my soul out of trouble.” (Ps 143:10-11 AV)

 

This request is not for the faint of heart.  Yet, it is absolutely necessary.  This request is a transparent one.  It is the prayer of the saint who knows he struggles with God’s will, particularly with righteousness.  Like Paul, he desires to do right, but a strong part of him fights against it.  He is honest in that he is willing to admit to the LORD he fails to meet the standard of righteousness that pleases God.  He also admits he does not have it within himself to meet that standard and that only with God’s overriding hand can he hope to live in the righteousness of God.  Further, he admits the state of his soul.  Because of his struggle, his soul is in a state of trouble.  This trouble isn’t how we would use the word today.  We would use the word to mean in jeopardy and assume this to be a prayer for salvation.  But it is not.  It is a prayer of a soul that is disquieted because he doesn’t do as God wishes nearly as much as the right part of him desires.  As we meditate upon these verses, let us consider the disquietness of the soul.  Let us consider the fact that when we make choices we know are wrong, we cannot have peace of soul.  After all, isn’t that what we desperately want?

Children are a great source of education.  We grow up and often forget what it was like to be a child.  In fact, most of it is forgotten.  However, some traits die hard and are not automatically overcome as we mature.  We have had a one-and-a-half-year-old in our home for the past few weeks.  She can be a handful.  But she is no more so than any other one-and-a-half-year-old.  Watching her is an education in basic human behavior.  Her processes leave her miserable.  She has not learned there are better ways to be made happy and comfortable.  Like all small children, she manipulates others to please her when there is no need to.  She has not learned the finer points of politeness and appropriateness.  This results in conditions, not to her liking.  The demand to be pleased and content actually causes her much consternation.  This misery is totally unnecessary.  When she is the center of her universe, which she usually is, then she is seldom content.  There is one demand after another.  In her defense, this is normal for a child so young.  She simply doesn’t know any better.  The thing is, we are not all that different.  We still make the mistake of thinking if we fulfill our desires, then we will be content.  Even if we seek to fulfill our desires apart from God’s means of fulfillment, we still erroneously think we will be happier.  Once the itch is relieved, then we must be better, right?

The psalmist makes the correct association here.  The association with an unsettled soul and one’s choices cannot be overlooked.  Now, an unsettled soul is not always the result of wrong choices.  There is a lack of faith which can also send the soul into a place of unrest.  But in our passage, the writer knows he is not content because he has chosen to ignore God’s will and do his own thing.  That is why he asks the LORD to teach him.  He wants to learn to do God’s will so that he can please God and have contentment in his soul.  He wants to learn the discipline of will so that he can be at peace with God and himself.  He does not want the unrest that comes with failure.  He does not want the unsettled heart that vacillates between self and God.  He wants a unified heart that always seeks God’s perfect will so that he might be the child of God which the Father deserves and that his soul will be at rest.