Day 3 – Issue 18

Be Still Know

Psalm 119:1 NLT

‘Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the Lord.’

My American friends tell me that ‘Perception is reality’. This means that truth is often distorted and compromised by the lens through which I choose to look at it. The modern media is an excellent example as to how people and events can be made to seem good or bad dependent upon the lens through which they are reported. It is exceptionally difficult to change our perception once a lens has been chosen.

My initial understanding of what following Jesus involved was that I somehow expressed my faith through my words and actions. These were visible and I assumed they counted in my favour, as I demonstrated my improving godliness. Sadly the only real gallery I was playing to was the one located within my own head. I was satisfying my own perception of what pleasing God looked like. No surprise that I reacted so violently when I felt my godliness was betrayed through the events allowed into my life: the most compelling of which was Katey’s diagnosis with MS. I wasn’t joyful, yet joy is what the psalmist promises to those who walk in integrity in following God’s teaching.

What was immediately apparent was that my life made no sense as I peered through the lens of my own making, a self-serving potpourri of biblical understanding. I was reacting less to God than to the God I had designed to accompany me through life. My sincerity wasn’t in question; I was simply sincerely wrong. I had been living the Christian way for 17 years in pursuit of a God who served me, always under the misapprehension that I was serving God. The exposure was as painful as it was shocking, and perhaps one reason I lost sight of who I was, where God was and what the direction of travel was.

QUESTION: What is your perception of God?

PRAYER: Lord, may your word be a lamp to my feet and a guide to my path that I may know you and follow you with integrity.