Over the last few months we have been blogging summaries from Eugene Peterson's Book "A Long Obedience In The Same Direction," based upon the Songs Of Ascents. This colletion of Psalms serve as a wonderful guide in the pursuit of glorifying God through all of life. Here is a pdf of the entire series. LongObedienceSameDirection.rb.d
Psalm 134 (ESV)1Come, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD, who stand by night in the house of the LORD! 2 Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the LORD!
3May the LORD bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth!
Stand, Stoop, Stay: The way of discipleship begins in an act of repentance and concludes in a life of praise. God enters into a covenant with us, he pours out his own life for us, he shares the goodness of his Spirit, the vitality of his creation, the joys of his redemption. That is blessing.
The God who stands, stoops, and stays summarizes the posture of blessing: God stands—he is foundational and dependable; God stoops—he kneels to our level and meets us where we are; God stays—he sticks with us through hard times and good, sharing his life with us in grace and peace.
An Invitation and a Command: Psalm 134 features the word blessing in a form that might be called an invitation and a command. Bless God. Do that for which you were created and redeemed; lift you voices in gratitude; enter into the community of praise and prayer that anticipates the final consummation of faith in heaven. Bless The Lord.
Feelings Don’t Run the Show: Lift your arms in blessing and just maybe your heart will get the message and be lifted up also in praise. Find the right things to do, practice the actions, and other things will follow. By changing our behavior we can change our feelings. This creates an atmosphere where feelings don’t run the show. There is a reality deeper than feelings. Bless The Lord.
Taking God seriously but Not Ourselves: Never take yourself seriously and always take God seriously, and therefore, you will be full of cheerfulness, and exuberant with blessing. Blessing is at the end of this road. And that which is at the end of the road influences everything that takes place along the road. A joyful end requires a joyful means. Bless the Lord.
The Chief End: If you do not convey joy in your demeanor and gesture and speech, you will not be an authentic witness for Jesus Christ. Delight in what God is doing, is essential in our work. The main thing is not work for the Lord; it is not suffering in the name of the Lord; it is not witnessing for the Lord; it is not teaching Sunday school for the Lord; it is not being responsible for the sake of the Lord in the community; it is not keeping the Ten Commandments; not loving your neighbor; not observing the golden rule. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. This is the destination of our ascent as Christians; God’s glory in our enjoyment of God. Bless the Lord.
(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)
Psalm 133 (ESV)
1Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!
2It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
3It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the LORD has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore.
Our membership in the church is a corollary of our faith in Christ. We can no more be a Christian and have nothing to do with the church than we can be a person and not be in a family. When we become Christians, we are among brothers and sisters in faith. No Christian is an only child.
Not Like Paying Taxes:
This Psalm puts into song what is said and demonstrated throughout Scripture: community is essential. God never works with individuals in isolation for isolation, but always with people in community. How great it is to have everyone sharing a common purpose, traveling a common path, striving toward a common goal, that path and purpose and goal being God.
Two Ways to Avoid Community:
Living together in a way that evokes the glad song of Psalm 133 is one of the great and arduous tasks before Christ’s people. Nothing is more difficult. A common way to avoid community is to deal with people as problems to be solved rather than see them as brothers and sisters to serve. Christians, rightfully understood, are a community of people who are visibly together at worship but who also remain in relationship through the week in witness and service. Another common way to avoid community is to turn the church into an institution. In this way people are treated not on the basis of personal relationships but in terms of impersonal functions.
Every community of Christians is imperiled when either routes are pursued: the route of defining people as problems to be solved, the way one might repair an automobile or the route of lumping people together in terms of economic ability or institutional effectiveness, the way one might run a bank. Somewhere else lies community—a place where each person is taken seriously, learns to trust others, depend on others, be compassionate with others, rejoices with others.
Each Other’s Priest:
The first image of this Psalm is one of anointing with costly oil. The oil was being used symbolically to represent marking a person as a priest. Living together means seeing my brother and sister as my priest. When we see the other as God’s anointed, our relationships are profoundly affected. It is not what a Christian is in themselves, their spirituality and piety, which constitutes the basis of our community. What determines our brotherhood is what a man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ had done to us and what Christ makes us.
The second image of this Psalm is the dew on Mount Hermon flowing down the slopes of Zion. Symbolic of the renewing spirit that God provides us. Important in any community of faith is an ever-renewed expectation of what God is doing with our brothers and sisters in the faith. When we are in community with those Christ loves and redeems, we are constantly finding out new things about them. They are new persons each morning, endless in their possibilities, renewed by the love of Christ.
The oil communicates warm, priestly relationship. The dew communicates fresh and expectant newness.
Rousing Good Fellowship:
Christians are always attempting and never quite succeed at getting a picture of the life everlasting. Psalm 1333 throws out just a hint of heaven. It is where relationships are warm and expectancies fresh, we are already beginning to enjoy the life together that will be completed in our life everlasting.
(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)
Psalm 132 (ESV)1Remember, O LORD, in David's favor, all the hardships he endured, 2how he swore to the LORD and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, 3 "I will not enter my house or get into my bed, 4I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, 5until I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob."
6Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar. 7 “Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool!”
8 Arise, O LORD, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. 9Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your saints shout for joy. 10For the sake of your servant David, do not turn away the face of your anointed one.
11 The LORD swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: “One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. 12If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne.”
13For the LORD has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place: 14 “This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it. 15I will abundantly bless her provisions; I will satisfy her poor with bread. 16Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy. 17There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. 18His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine.”
True knowledge of God is born out of obedience. (John Calvin)
Stable, Not Petrified: We want Christian faith that has stability but is not petrified, that has vision but is not hallucinatory. Psalm 132 is a psalm of David’s obedience. The psalm shows obedience as a lively, adventurous response of faith that is rooted in historical fact and reaches into a promised hope.
Obedience with a History: The first half of Psalm 132 is the part that roots obedience in fact and keeps our feet on the ground. There is a vast, rich reality of obedience beneath the feet of disciples; and if we are going to live as the people of God, we need more data than our own experiences to draw from. Biblical history is a good memory for what does and does not work. Psalm 132 activates faith’s memory so that obedience will be grounded.
Hope: A Race Towards God’s Promises: Psalm 132 doesn’t just keep our feet on the ground, it also gets them off the ground. For obedience is not a stodgy plodding in the ruts of religion, it is a hopeful race toward God’s promises. Obedience is fulfilled by hope. Psalm 132 cultivates a hope that gives wings to obedience, a hope that is consistent with the reality of what God has done in the past but is not confined to it. All the expectations listed in Psalm 132 have their origin in an accurately remembered past. Christians who master Psalm 132 will be protected from the danger that we should reduce Christian existence to ritually obeying a few commandments that are congenial to our temperament and convenient to our standard of living. It gives us, instead, a vision into the future so that we can see what is right before us. Obedience is doing what God tells us to do in it.
The Strength to Stand, the Willingness to Leap: In such ways Psalm 132 cultivates the memory and nurtures the hope that lead to mature obedience. For Christian living demands that we keep our feet on the ground; it also asks us to make a leap of faith. What we require is obedience—the strength to stand and the willingness to leap, and the sense to know when to do which. Which is exactly what we get when an accurate memory of God’s ways is combined with a lively hope in His promises.
(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)
Psalm 131 (ESV)1O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. 2But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.
Humility is the obverse side of God, whereas pride is the obverse side of confidence in self. (John Baillie)
Psalm 131 is a maintenance psalm. It gets rid of that which looks good to those who don’t know any better, and reduces the distance between our hearts and their roots in God. The two things that Psalm 131 prunes away are unruly ambition and infantile dependency.
Aspiration Gone Crazy: All cultures throw certain stumbling blocks in the way of those who pursue gospel realities. The way of faith deals with these realities whenever and in every culture. One stumbling block that has become prevalent is ambition. Our culture encourages and rewards ambition without qualification. To be on top, no matter what your on top of, is admired. It is hard to recognize pride as a sin when it is held up on every side as a virtue, urged as profitable and rewarded as an achievement.
We are caught up in a way of life that, instead of delighting in finding out the meaning of God and searching out the conditions in which human qualities can best be realized, recklessly seeks ways to circumvent nature, arrogantly defies personal relationships and names God only in curses. Those who yield themselves up to the influence of ambition will soon lose themselves in a labyrinth of perplexity.
As Content as a Child: Having realized the dangers of pride, the sin of thinking too much of ourselves, we are suddenly in danger of another mistake, thinking too little of ourselves. There are some that believe since the great Christian temptation is to be everything, the perfect solution is to be nothing. These people then compensate for their lives by weepily clinging to God. But Christian faith is not neurotic dependency but childlike trust. We do not cling to God desperately out of fear and the panic of insecurity; we come to him freely in faith and love. Our Lord gave us the picture of a child as a model for Christian faith, not because of the child’s helplessness, but because of the child’s willingness to be led, to be taught, to be blessed. For God does not want us neurotically dependent on him but willingly trustful in him.
The Plain Way: We are always, it seems, reeling from one side of the road to the other as we travel in the way of faith. We are first incited into being grandiose and then intimidated into being infantile. But there is another way, the plain way of quiet Christian humility. As we learn this Psalm we discover the quietness of the weaned child, the tranquility of maturing trust. Psalm 131 nurtures: a quality of calm confidence and quiet strength that knows the difference between unruly arrogance and faithful aspiration. This song teaches us not to seek our glory but to be about God’s glory as the one we trust, the one we love to be with, and the one we hope in from this time forth and forevermore.
(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)
Psalm 130 (ESV)1Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! 2O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
3If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.
5I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; 6my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.
7O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. 8And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
To be human is to be in trouble. Man and woman, alone in creation, suffer. For suffering is pain plus: physical or emotional pain plus the awareness that our own worth as people is threatened, that our own value as creatures made in the dignity of God is called into question, that our own destiny as eternal souls is jeopardized. A Christian is a person who decides to face and live through suffering. Psalm 130 grapples mightily with suffering, sings its way through it, and provides usable experience for those who are committed to traveling the way of faith to God through Jesus Christ.
Giving Dignity to Suffering: By setting the anguish out in the open and voicing it as a prayer, the psalm gives a dignity to our suffering. We should set suffering squarely, openly, and passionately before God. The Gospels offer this view of suffering: in suffering we enter the depths; we are at the heart of things; we are near to where Christ was on the cross. Psalm 130 focuses on immersing suffering in God as all the suffering is spoken in the form of prayer, which means that God is taken seriously as a personal and concerned Father.
Employed to Wait: Such are the two great realities of Psalm 130: suffering is real; God is real. We will cry from the depths and our cry will be heard. Suffering is a mark of our existential authenticity; God is proof of our essential and eternal humanity. We are to wait and watch, and through this will find hope. This means going about our assigned task of suffering with the knowledge that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions.
An Eye Specialist and a Painter: When we suffer we attract counselors as money attracts thieves. Everybody has an idea of what we did wrong to get into this situation and also how to get out. But what we truly need is hope; hope from God. We need to know that suffering is part of what it means to be human and not something alien. We need to know where we are and where God is. We need to know that God understand and cares about our suffering.
Psalm 130 is essential equipment, for it convinces us that the big difference is not in what people suffer but in the way they suffer. This psalm is a powerful demonstration that our place in the depths is not out of bounds from God. This Psalm shows us that our hope comes not from our holiness, our performance, or our abilities, but is grounded in God’s steadfast love, in His plentiful redemption, in His sanctifying work. Cry out from your depths. Cry out to the LORD who hears. Cry out knowing He hears not because your sinless but because He forgives. Cry out and wait for His redemption not for worldly council. Cry out and wait in hope “For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”
(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)