I’ve often wondered how David could write about the law like he did. He fills the Psalms with writings about how the law is no burden but a delight: David meditates on scripture and rises with it in the morning to call visiting God’s house a joyful thing.

I tend to think of law as a burden, and goodness knows a Christian life is filled with them. Simply, I don’t get to do what I want, and I certainly don’t get to shape the law of love that I follow into something that simply validates what I want.

But the law is a delightful thing, I think, in that it points me to Jesus, but also a depressing thing as it points out my complete imperfection. Or, another way, it’s a sack of bricks I know I can’t carry.

The Spirit points to that new law of love and liberty, the point at which I can drop those bricks. Yet the new law is no different from the old law: it changes people. Being Spirit-filled means listening to the voice of God, delighting in scripture, and changing.

Or to bring it full-circle, a new law means a new life, and a new perspective, and a new way of going about things, and a new concept of reality. From that side of the veil, I can see how David writes a Psalm about delight in law; the law is that thing that points out the weeds, and the Spirit is the one that powers the arm to uproot them. Another way: I am a new man with old man tendencies, and the scripture and Spirit are the heart and lungs keeping me alive.

So, I start my week.

Tags: ruminations, scripture