DAILY DEVOTIONAL – April 29, 2020
“Straight and True“
Prayer: Lord Jesus, as You healed so many of the blind, we beg for Your mercy and ask that You would lift the veil from our eyes and reveal Yourself to us. Give us the eyes of faith to see the Truth of Your salvation and the reality of Your presence with us each and every day. Amen.
Scripture: Psalm 119:89-94
Forever, O Lord, your word
is firmly fixed in the heavens.
90 Your faithfulness endures to all generations;
you have established the earth, and it stands fast.
91 By your appointment they stand this day,
for all things are your servants.
92 If your law had not been my delight,
I would have perished in my affliction.
93 I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have given me life.
94 I am yours; save me,
for I have sought your precepts.
Devotional – “Straight and True”
I read an absolutely fascinating article the other day in a report delivered by the National Public Radio (otherwise known as NPR).
Studies have shown that if you blindfold a person and ask them to walk in a straight line, most people will start out well, keeping a straight enough path, but not long after they will begin to wander. Now, like me you may be assuming that a blindfolded person would wander aimlessly, in an unpredictable and completely random way. As it turns out, however, that is not the case at all. Apparently, going all the way back to the 1920’s, people have been doing experiments like this and the results are persistently the same. When blindfolded and instructed to walk in as straight of a line as they can, person after person instead walks in ever tightening and looping circles. It is a phenomenon that has been demonstrated over and over again. They have blindfolded people and told them to walk in a straight line, swim in a straight line and even drive in a straight line. Every time, every person does not go straight but instead travels in looping, tightening circles. It gets even more weird. In many of these experiments, people eventually end up at the exact same place they started.
When the researchers would interview the subjects who were blindfolded and ask them how they thought they did, every one of them said it felt like they we’re walking in a straight line.
Although the research is still inconclusive as to why this phenomenon happens, one thing has been made plainly clear: humans need a fixed point of reference in order to walk in a straight line. Without the ability to fix our eyes on something that is fixed, like a tree or mountain, or something that at least appears to be fixed, like the sun or the moon, we cannot keep a straight line. Instead, we will chase our own tail in ever-tightening circles until we end up right back where we started.
There was one line in this NPR article that I found particularly fascinating. Robert Kulwich, reporting for NPR on this phenomenon observed that without a point of reference or a “corrective…our insides take over and there’s something inside us that won’t stay straight.”
Mr. Kulwich couldn’t be more right could he? There is something inside of us that won’t stay straight. It’s called sin. Sin has darkened our ability to see clearly. Sin has blinded us to God, and has blinded us to the real purpose and meaning of life which is to know Him and worship Him. As the prophet Isaiah says in 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way.” No different than those blindfolded subjects in the study, if we live life in the darkness of sin and without the light of Christ as our fixed point of reference, then we only chase ourselves, ‘round and ‘round, until we end up right back where we began. We may feel like we are walking straight ahead, but if we are relying in any way on what is inside of us or inside of other people, we fool ourselves.
Our only hope of walking straight ahead and out of the darkness, is by following the fixed Light of Christ; and His Light shines in His Word. As it says in verse 89 from our Psalm 119 text for today, “Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.” The Word of God is straight and true. “It is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.” – Romans 1:16. That very Word of God that spoke light and everything into existence put on flesh and dwelt among us, lived the life we could not and would not live before God, died the death we deserved to die because of our sin, and rose again on the third day so that we would be forgiven by God through faith in the blood of Jesus as our atoning sacrifice. As John 1:5 says about Jesus, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
This world we live in is not only dark, but ever changing. This dead and dying world offers no true and eternally fixed point of reference on which we can focus and rely on to guide our souls. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously said, “Change is the only constant in life.” To the same point, Heraclitus also said, “No man steps in the same river twice.”
The only true and constant hope we have is in God Himself. God says in Malachi 3:6, “I the Lord do not change.”
In the same way that the blindfolded people in these experiments could have sworn they were walking a straight line, but yet were only going in circles after themselves, the Bible says in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man [a way that seems straight to us] but the end thereof is death.” Left to our own might and reason, we are destined to live a life of meaningless circles that only end in death. However, God has graciously and mercifully shown us the way out. He has given us the fixed point upon which we can focus and rely upon.
Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” In John 8:12 Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” And though we cannot see our Risen Lord with the eyes in our head, Jesus is faithful to His promise to never leave us or forsake us and has given us His Word in Scripture through which He reveals His light to us. As verse 105 of our text from Psalm 119 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Let us walk straight and true my friends. “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2)
Thanks for joining me for another daily devotional in God’s Word, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
