Feb 13 2019 Psalm 119: 97-120

Oh, how I love your law! All the day long it is in my mind.

In the world of personality types, I have one that would find comfort in this phrase. I am, for the most part, a rule follower – not to be confused as a conformist, by any stretch. But I’m generally very deferential to rules, and rulers. So it may come as no surprise that I appreciate this section of the psalms. Oh how I love your law!

The psalmist goes on and on in this lengthy psalm about his joy at receiving, meditating, and obeying the law. Was the psalmist also an inherent rule-follower, or is this about something different?
When I served as assistant city manager, I worked for a city manager who said that he always followed and enforced the laws consistently. This was tough, as the job of many managers is to deal with the millions of exceptions that come their way. His thinking was that if he always was consistent in his enforcement and application of the law, there was never going to be an instance where he was seen as unfair or arbitrary. Adherence to the rules, absolutely, made his life easier, his decisions more defensible and easier to predict.

I see something similar with God’s law. Love God. Love your neighbor. It makes my life easier, when I follow this, absolutely. It makes my decisions more defensible, and easier to predict. To be clear, I’m not suggesting I get it right every time. But the beauty of laws, especially laws I believe to be life-affirming, is that it takes out of my life some of the hardness. Given two choices, I have a north star, in God’s law.

It’s a little like Obama’s decision to always wear grey suits. He claimed he had too many important decisions in his day. Why add wardrobe drama to that? So daily, he wore grey suits. It was a way to avert decision fatigue, by reducing the brain power for choices that should be easier.
And while life isn’t easy, and our life choices aren’t easy, I like the idea of God’s law being like my grey suits. It’s my go-to choice. Love God. Love my neighbors.