The Paths of Righteousness (or What I Thought About While I Had COVID)

 

“He leads me in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.” Ps. 23:4b (NIV)

For the last three weeks I've been recovering from COVID, and while I was on my back (literally!) I had a lot of time on my hands, time I put to use rereading one of my favorite series called The Mallorean. For those who have never heard of it, it's about a quest in another world, and the main character had to search through all these old prophecies to find the clues he needed to know the next step in his journey. He traveled all over the world with his closest friends, following the clues and figuring out the riddles until he finally got to the end of his quest and found what he was looking for. At one point in the story, he asked the question, “Why is it so hard to find our next clue? Why can’t someone just tell us clearly where we’re supposed to go and what we’re supposed to do?” The answer he was given? If the prophecies had been more clear and understandable, then anyone could have found what he was seeking, but he was the only one who was supposed to find the clues, so he was obliged to search them out and study their meanings. Needless to say, that lessened his frustration only a little. I am so glad that God doesn’t do that to us. 😅

Psalm 23, the Shepherd’s Psalm, is a song David wrote describing God’s loving care of His children. David talks about God’s providence of physical and spiritual needs, His protection in the face of death and in the presence of one’s enemies, and David’s own assurance of God’s continued blessings throughout his own life. But there’s a verse in the middle of that psalm that really got me thinking: 

“He leads me in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake” (Ps. 23:4b) God’s guidance extends, not just to our needs, but also to our deeds.  The term “paths of righteousness” refers to the way we live our lives—many times the Bible compares our lifestyle to a walk, a path or a road. In Genesis 5-6, both Enoch and Noah were described as men who “walked with God”, implying a close relationship with the Father that was visible to those around them because of their lifestyle. Numerous times in the New Testament, our lifestyle is described in terms of a “walk”, a way that we travel: Ephesians 5:2 tells us to “walk in love, as Christ also has loved us”; in Philippian 3:17-18 we are encouraged to follow the example of those who walk in the path laid out by the apostles and avoid those who walk as enemies of Christ; and in Colossians 3:7-8 and 4:5 we are instructed to no longer walk in the ways of the world and sinfulness, but instead to “walk in wisdom” around those who do not know the love of Christ (KJV). And then, of course, there are the numerous times the Apostle Paul referred to his life as a race in which he was running to win the prize (Phil. 3:12-14, II Tim. 4:6-8, Heb. 12:1).

 My point in all this is that the Bible gives us ample instruction on how to walk through our daily lives; as we read and study God’s Word, the Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts, teaching us the right way to live. What’s interesting is the reason He gives us this guidance—“for His Name’s sake”. Over the years I’ve noticed that you can tell who or what anybody worships by the way he/she lives his/her life and the things he/she says and does—if his god is money, for example, he’s going to spend all his time making, saving and stockpiling it; if her god is herself, everything she does will be to push herself forward and make herself appear better to others. Extreme examples could include the Manson gang or the worshipers of the Indian goddess of death, Kali Durga—both groups routinely murdered innocent people because of their belief systems. Just so, as Christians, our actions reflect on our Savior, and because our God cares about the way His children act, He gives them guidance and instruction on how to live in a way that pleases Him and reflects on Who He is intrinsically. We don’t have to go searching for clues and figuring out riddles like the hero in the book I read did; God spells out exactly what He wants His children to do in His Word.

When we follow God’s guidance, we become shining witnesses of the God that we serve. This for a Christian is one of our greatest defenses against a wicked and unbelieving world, for as the Apostle Peter told the suffering Christians in the first century, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us” (I Pet. 2:12), and having kept “a clear conscience, …those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander” (3:16). I’m reminded of Daniel in the Old Testament who lived such a blameless life, that when his enemies wanted to bring charges against him, the only thing they could find to accuse him with was his faith in Jehovah God (Dan. 6:4-5). He is a good example to the rest of us on how to walk the paths of righteousness David was talking about.

Of course, the opposite is also true—when we choose to disobey God’s instructions in the Bible, we slander Christ’s name and run the danger of reaping the consequences of sin in our lives. Two examples that come to mind immediately are King Saul and Ananias and Sapphira. King Saul was given specific instructions to exterminate a group of people who had disregarded the Lord and been a plague and a thorn in the side of Israel for some time, but he chose to disobey his orders and allow certain valuable people (think ransom) and animals (think growing one’s personal wealth) to survive. This single act of disobedience cost him his kingship and his relationship with God; after all, a man who refuses to listen to God cannot really have a relationship with Him, can he? Ananias and Sapphira were two Christians in the first church of Jerusalem who chose to lie to the church elders (a.k.a. the apostles) in order to appear more generous to the church than they actually had been. Peter told them quite bluntly in Acts 5:3-4, “You have not lied to men, but to God!”, at which point they each fell down dead at his feet! If they had been allowed to live after lying like that, others might have followed their terrible example and caused great hurt to the name of Christ in that fledgling church, hence the severity of their punishment. Perhaps these are extreme examples, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the consequences for disobeying the command to avoid sex outside of marriage or to abstain from stealing or lying or coveting. I heard someone say once that if God is our Creator/Inventor, then the Bible is our instruction manual on how to make the machinery run most smoothly, and so it follows that if we want our lives to run smoothly without all the drama and stress caused by sin, then it behooves us to follow the directions God has given us in His Word.

The thing is, God wants that even more for His children than they want it for themselves; that’s why He gave us the instructions in the first place. “He leads [us] in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake”, but not just because He cares about the reputation we give Him—He also cares deeply for us. He wants to prevent all the heartache and physical and emotional fallout that sin brings into our lives, so that we can, as Jesus said in John 10:10, “have life to the fullest.” This is why He becomes, as Isaiah 30:21 states, “a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” He is the inner voice of our conscience, telling us when we’re about to make a mistake or make the wrong decision, and if we listen to Him, we will find ourselves guided into those paths of righteousness where there is goodness and mercy and where we can “dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Ps. 23:6). That is truly the path to joy-filled life!