Living in the Spirit
August 1, 2018
Scripture Reading: Psalm 51:1-12
You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities. –Psalm 51:6-9
Our scripture for today is a prayer ascribed to David as his response to Nathan’s confronting him about his affair with Bathsheba. Today people perhaps define “truth” as the opposite of “lie” thus relating “truth” to something not being factual. Truth has a richer meaning. It not only represents what is factual but has a more eternal connotation related to our reaction to knowing what is true by being faithful to what is true. This scripture implies that truth rest in our inmost being and radiates out through our whole being. Others know us by our truthfulness in deed as well as word.
The world used in antiquity for identifying a building as being well aligned is that it was true to its building specifications. What is the measure to which we are being true in our inward parts?
Shakespeare addressed truth this way in Hamlet:
“This above all: to thine own self be true
And it must follow, as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man/Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!”
The speaker is saying we measure our true selves by our ideas of who and what we should be toward attaining what we want to get out of life. It is more than a little selfish but represents much of the thinking in our world today.
I think the Psalmist would take umbrage with such an interpretation. Those of us who follow the path that says God created each of us in God’s image are called to hold God’s image as our plumb line of truth. God did not create us to be puppets without self-will but rather children of love created with a vast array of choices regarding how to use our talents and skills to craft a world ruled by love. Many of us have only begun to scratch the surface of what we can contribute to such a world.
Prayer: Lord, help us dive deeper into your well of truth in our lives. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.