Walk in Wisdom

Deuteronomy 5:28b-29
“And the LORD said to me, ‘I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you. … Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!’”

I can’t think of a better word to describe our human condition than the word inconstancy. Even as regenerated believers in Christ, even after throwing away old addictions and worldly ambitions, we still woke up this morning in another round of that spiritual tug-of-war. Paul expresses his frustration at this condition in Romans 7, which writing, “The things I want to do, I don’t do, and the things I don’t want to do, I do; oh wretched man that I am!” Isaiah echoed that sentiment when crying out, “Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips!” Even Job, the poster boy for fidelity even to onlooking demons, changed his prayers of thanksgiving to a fever-pitched moan of frustration during those dark days in the ash heap. So, when I hear God, in His own words cry out in Deuteronomy 5:29, “Oh that they had such a heart as this always,” I hear enveloped under that wish the whole of human history. After all, it wasn’t just Judas who sold Christ out for money or Peter who denied Him under peer pressure or Nicodemus who sought Him in secret or David who lusted after his neighbor’s wife or Aaron who fashioned an idol or Cain who murdered his brother or Noah who became a drunkard or Eve who chose forbidden fruit over communion with her Creator! We’ve all got our own lines in that uncomfortable chronicle of inconstancy as well.

Oh to be like Christ not just in His purity and bravery and honesty and humility but in His constancy! To seek the Father’s will even if it leads to Gethsemanes and Golgothas, trusting that the cup, though bitter at first, leads to our eternal flourishing. “For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross,” writes Paul. Why? Because “these momentary afflictions are not to be compared to the glory we receive in Christ Jesus!”

May God’s wish be our command today, friend, because He’s worthy of it.