Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me and teach me your law. I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I have set my heart on your laws. I hold fast to your statutes, Lord; do not let me be put to shame. I run in the path of your commands, for you have broadened my understanding. Psalm 119:29-32 NIV
If you have a desire to please the Lord and stay on the right track there is a lot to learn from these four verses! First, the psalmist introduces the struggle, then he shows us the way out.
Keep me from deceitful ways. Herein lies the struggle: You want to please the Lord but the enemy, the father of lies, does a real good job of confusing you, making it hard for you to know what to do. The world would tell you to follow your heart, but Jeremiah reminds us the the heart is deceitful above all things! Too many times, you know what your heart is telling you to do, but it just doesn’t seem to match up with God’s word. You find yourself searching through the scriptures looking for a loop hole, any verse that will justify your desire. Could it be that as the enemy is working hard to trip you up, your own heart is deceiving you? Yes! Check out this verse in the New Living Translation: Keep me from lying to myself; give me the privilege of knowing your instructions. Psalm 119:29 NLT The psalmist is smart enough to realize he can’t trust his own feelings, they will lie to him. He needs God to step in and show him what’s right. God is faithful! He will always give you the privilege of knowing His instructions if you ask!
I have chosen the way of faithfulness. It all starts with a choice. You have to make a conscious decision to be faithful to God, to be true to His word, even if another option appeals to you.
I have set my heart on your laws. It starts in the mind, with a determination, a resolve, then you set your heart on it! I don’t know about you, but once my heart is set on something, there’s no turning back! There comes a point when we need to reign in our deceitful heart and set it in the right direction. Don’t allow it to be set on anything sinful, only allow it to be set on pleasing the Lord.
I hold fast to your statutes. You know the right thing to do, you’ve made up your mind, you’ve set your heart on pleasing the Lord, now you need to hold fast! You need to cling to righteousness, hold on to it tight, so that nothing can remove it from your grip! No matter what storm may come, no matter what temptation Satan throws at you, hold fast. Do not waiver! When you hold fast, as the psalmist asks, God will not allow you to be put to shame, for shame only accompanies sin.
I run in the path of your commands. I love this! There is no hesitation in your actions now; you have made up your mind, set your heart on it, and are holding fast. Now no one needs to push you toward the right way, you run in that direction! Your resolve to please God is driving you and nothing can hold you back! He has shown you His path and you are pursuing Him with every bit of energy you have.
You have broadened my understanding. Now you get it, there is no confusion. I’ve found in my life, when I’ve been caught in the struggle of doing what I feel is right and doing what God’s word says is right, it’s not until the last step in this process that I really begin to understand. It starts with a choice to be faithful, even though that requires denying myself the pleasure my heart is telling me to pursue. Then the fog begins to lift, but not completely as I set my heart on obeying my God. I need to hold fast because the struggle is still real, I’m still being pulled in the opposite direction. But the longer I deny myself and hold fast to God’s word the more I progress from a slow forced walk down God’s path to an all out sprint! It’s then that God broadens my understanding, I can look back and clearly see I was heading in the wrong direction and I find myself saying, “What was I thinking???”