Accept, Lord, the willing praise of my mouth, and teach me your laws. Though I constantly take my life in my hands, I will not forget your law.
Psalm 119:108-109 (NIV)
Praise Before the Danger Passes
The closet off his kitchen is a step from the back door. It holds the bibs, the gloves, the boots with tape on the left heel, and the hat he will not throw out, and he could find any of them with his eyes shut.
He goes out on the water for a living, so the weather decides more of his week than he does, and he has been at it long enough to have stopped arguing about that.
Whoever wrote this psalm had been through something and says it plainly: I have suffered much. Then he asks God to accept the willing praise of his mouth, the praise nobody made him give, and to teach him his laws. He keeps going in the same breath. Though I constantly take my life in my hands, I will not forget your law.
His life is in his own hands, loose enough that anything at all could take it. That is the condition he is in while he gives away praise he did not owe. And in the middle of it, the thing he asks for is a lesson. Teach me your laws. A man whose life is loose in his hands asks to be taught.
Most of what we mean to give God has been scheduled for later, for when the scan comes back clear and the person we have been waiting on finally calls. We put it in the attic with the rest of what we will get to. He keeps his by the back door, with the gear he would grab on the worst morning of the year, and he keeps it there because that is when he expects to need it.
How the danger turned out never made it into the psalm. The man is still in the middle of it when he asks to be taught.
A Prayer to Remember
I would rather wait. I would rather know how this turns out first, and then give you something once my hands are free. Take it now instead, before I have anything to report. Teach me while the thing is still open and the answer has not come.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
