Sunday Morning Meds--He knows

“But the Lord watches over the way of the righteous.” Psalm 1:6 

I know one Q & A from the catechism I was raised with (I know more than one actually, but don’t press me), and that is the very first—“What is your only comfort in life and death?” The answer begins this way: “That I am not my own, but belong. . .”

I’ll spare you the entire answer, but I’m sure that one of the reasons this particular q and a sticks to the my otherwise Teflon memory is the answer’s tone and texture, its emotional color: the word of the moment here is comfort: What is your only comfort? What makes you feel good? What settles your nerves, helps you sleep, gets you over the blues?

And the answer is, that I am not my own but I belong to God.

The first psalm’s final verse begins with a phrase you can pull up to your chin on a blizzardy morning like this one: “The Lord watches over the way of the righteous.” But just for a moment, I’d rather consider the King James, which says, “He knows the way of the righteous.”

He knows. He’s understands. It’s no mystery to him. For the Lord God Almighty, right and wrong and good and ill is all in a day’s work. He knows. He’s got it down. It’s that simple, really. And I find that immensely comforting.

Perhaps because life isn’t. Oh, I know I sound pessimistic, but really, when you add up the whole works it amounts to nothing more or less than a sidewalk eighty years long, maybe, that leads the grave. Not comforting.

I have a plaque my father was given after twenty-some faithful years at the bank where he worked. Not expensive. His employers got it from a place that turns out trophies for longest putt at company golf tournaments. On its own, that plaque is worth nothing. My father died years ago but that plaque is on the bookshelf here in the basement because I just can’t throw it away, even though the investment it represents is just gone.

Last week in church, a man stood up and asked for prayers for a woman in Chicago, half a continent away. She’s dying of inoperable cancer, and her diagnosis is grim: she’ll be gone in six months.

I could have wept, honestly, even though I haven’t seen her for years and barely know her. As I grow older, I am more affected by such stories. When I was young and the trajectory of my life seemingly had no end, I was nowhere near as affected by other people’s miseries as I am today. Maybe that’s good. Today, other people’s sadness weighs heavily.

Psalm 1 begins with a word that’s hard to define—blessed; and ends with a pretty strong hint at what “blessedness” means. In the tribulations that are ours—occasioned by sinners (like myself) and by sin itself—we’re not going to want to forget that God knows. The Bible tells me so. God knows. He gets it.

And it’s not just a sweet idea. Be assured of it, David says, the shepherdly poet. God knows the way of the righteous. He understands. His boy was once one of us, after all.

To be blessed is to know, in life and in death, in sickness and in health, that God knows—and that he loves, even us. That’s blessed assurance.