Rules

I've been reading Psalm 119 over the past few days (it's so long it warrants a two day reading in my opinion) and it occurred to me that the psalmist is quite joyed at the fact that God had given rules for him to obey; he is excited that there are rules! His attitude seemed very strange to me at first because I myself do not get excited about following rules usually; I certainly follow them, but I don't think to myself, "Woohoo! I get to follow rules! Yeah!" As I thought about it some though I realized that this should be my attitude.


 


I think that humans are a lot like other animals in that we need to be trained to some extent, otherwise we would do whatever we wanted and seek to fulfill every desire we had without giving thought to it. The problem in doing this with humans I think is that we cannot even agree on what it is that we should do with our lives! I have not seen lions argue with other lions about how a lion should live, nor have I observed any species that argues with other members of the same species about how they should live as that species! What a curious thing we humans do in this regard. 

Since we do not know of ourselves how it is that we should live we must get this knowledge from an outside source. This is why I think the psalmist is so joyful that God gave him rules to follow: he recognized that God was the only one who could tell him how it is a human should live and is joyful that God has revealed it.

So I have too have become joyful that God has revealed how it is that we as humans should live; without this instruction I would be completely lost as to how it is that I should live. I would chase any and all types of pleasure in an attempt to find fulfillment or to find what is missing and even if they were all combined they would never satisfy. Some view the rules of religion as life-restricting, but I view them as life-giving. Since I have found the Way I no longer need to spend my time and energy searching for the Way, but can instead spend my time and energy following the Way and become all that I was made to be.