More than three sizes

"I shall run in the way of Your commandments,

For You will enlarge my heart."
--Psalm 119:32

This is not how we think of commandments, on our own. Hear "commandments" and you might be prone to think of chains and drudgery. "Did God actually say...?" the serpent in the Garden asks, incredulously, inviting Eve to draw her own conclusions about the sort of God who would command anything.

Yet this morning I stumbled across this verse in Psalm 119, the Bible's greatest love song to the Law (the one that challenges you to believe love and Law are by no means opposites), and I didn't think "chains." You can't run in chains. Running is for wide open spaces and for lungs fit to take in oxygen and for a heart large enough to handle it. For dedicated runners, running is a joyful thing, something to persevere in even through pain because they just don't want to give up a day of running. Running is freedom.

God enlarges our hearts, making it possible to run with excitement in the way of His commands, to know them as the purest form of freedom. And it doesn't say that He will ever stop growing the hearts, growing us.

The God who commands is the God who equips.

Watch where you put your "but"

"Weeping may tarry for the night,

but joy comes with the morning."

-- Psalm 30:5b

I've noticed lately that I have a tendency to reverse this.

"I like my house, but it's not organized yet."

"God is faithful, but life is difficult."

"Christians know the end of the story works out great, but the middle is kind of a mess."

These are all true statements. Worded as they are, though, the emphasis falls in the wrong place. Even if both parts of a statement are true, we usually place more emphasis on what comes after the "but."

Words matter. The way I use them matters. I want to watch where I put my "but" because it matters, and because after a "but" there is usually an "and," and I want the part of the statement that keeps going to be the one that's going in the right direction.

My house isn't organized yet, but I like it and I'm making progress.

Life is difficult, but God is faithful and He is with me in more ways than I can understand now.

The middle is kind of a mess, but Christians know the end of the story works out great, and we can put up with dramatic conflict while anticipating a beautiful resolution.

"In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."

--John 16:33b

Psalm 97:11

"Light is sown for the righteous,
and joy for the upright in heart."

-- Psalm 97:11

I'm not much of a gardener, much less a farmer, but I know that when you sow seeds you don't expect to see them sprout immediately. But there is joy in anticipating the harvest (especially if you know that, unlike you, the Gardener doesn't ever kill what He has planted).