Test Anxiety

You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. -- Psalms 119:68

Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem, each stanza using the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet to begin each verse.  There is a tradition that says David wrote this Psalm as a means of teach his son Solomon the spiritual alphabet.  It is both the longest psalm and the longest chapter in the Christian Bible, having, alone, more verses than some entire books.  The constraints of the structure -- though no doubt losing much in the translation to English, still manage to give Psalm 119 a unique timbre.  It is a prayer, like many of the Psalms, but -- like the Proverbs, its focus leans toward the inculcation of wisdom with the purpose of transformation. 

Like Micah chapter 6 and verse 8, the 68^th verse of the Psalm manages to encapsulate a vast panorama of life and religion.  God is good.  He does good.  What He does is good.   This goodness in character and action can be realized by man – by His grace.  When Charles Spurgeon commented on this verse, he pointed out that God’s goodness is active and purposeful.  God means to transform us and even to perfect us.  The psalmist confirms our sense of this world as a place of instruction, development, and growth.    

Thinking about it in this way, we can understand that there is a choice to be made.  We can choose to be negative and resentful of tribulations and afflictions, or we can see them as signposts and lessons to move us in the right direction.   

Sometimes things get written up in Scripture that are purposefully indirect.  Paul talked about his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).  We do not know what that might have been, though it is often speculated upon.  By being a little vague on the details, the Holy Spirit enables us to identify with the concept and accept our own humbling flaw – be it spiritual, physical, or psychological – as a thorn in the flesh as well.  We see how Paul dealt with his affliction – submission and acceptance after repeatedly asking in faith that he might have relief – and deal with our own problem the same way.

Elsewhere, we read:  And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.  And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.  So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas (Acts 16:6-8).   

I know that Paul and the other Apostles often heard from God fairly directly by dreams and visions, but I wonder about the means the Spirit used to direct these men to the particular town of Troas.  What happened such that, writing some years later, Luke could conclude that they had been “forbidden by the Holy Spirit”?  There is no mention here of a more direct revelation – though the vision known as the Macedonian Call is recorded in the very next verses.  Perhaps they were guided by impressions or maybe they just did not “feel right” about going a particular direction.  Maybe they received a prophetic word as Paul later heard from the prophet Agabus (Acts 21:10-11).

Any of those things are possible, but so too would be a course correction born of contrary circumstances, hostile encounters, physical hindrances, missed connections, or any other affliction that necessitated a change in direction.   For Paul and his traveling companions it meant going to Troas and across the straits to Europe rather than to Bithynia.  For us, it may mean a different job or career path than we had expected or a change in attitude or lifestyle. 

For most of us wisdom is not going to come from sitting comfortably in a comfortable room waiting for a nice dinner.  Transformation may happen in a cocoon but only after the caterpillar has consumed a lot of experiences and developed to the point where the cocoon can be created.  Right now God is teaching you and me His statutes.  All this crap that we are experiencing is infusing us with wisdom – if we are willing to receive it – and developing us to the point where metamorphoses can take place.  The grave is, of course, the ultimate (as best we know now) cocoon from which the butterfly may emerge in resplendent glory, but we have the potential for moving through stages within this life.  These transformations may not be objectively discernible or particularly radical.  That does not mean, though, that they are minor or insignificant.  When it comes to final exams, some of us probably just brushed up and reviewed while others crammed.  If you think about life’s final in the same way, a lot of stuff we see happening in and to ourselves and others might take on a different hue.         

The light of revelation does not illuminate all of the details in our path.  Its focus is upon the end -- perhaps it would be better to say that it originates from the end, splashing light back along our road home.  The shadows cast on this side of much that we encounter are deep and impenetrable, but the other side is well-lit.  The course is much easier to understand in the clarity of retrospection.  Sometimes, as we struggle with our shadows and mysteries, we must act with only a small lamp of faith in the darkness.   

God is good, always.  God does good, invariably.   We can pass this test.