Paths

A Reflection on the Psalm for April 26th, 2020:
​Third Sunday of Easter

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Psalm 16

Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. 

R:  Lord you will show me the path of life.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. 
I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. 

R:  Lord you will show me the path of life.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure. 
For you do not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful one see the Pit. 

R:  Lord you will show me the path of life.

You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

R:  Lord you will show me the path of life.

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Pause. Pray.

And then read more...

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Once upon a time I could think in French. Neither of my parents spoke French,  the trail I walked on throughout public school never ventured through French immersion, but I had the same French teacher through all four years of high school. She was from France and she was passionate and quirky and was infectious and part way through grade 12, I found myself thinking in French. But that was more than 35 years ago. Two paths I had to choose from back there: use it or lose it. I chose the wrong path. So a few years ago, after going to Haiti, I decided to start trying to beat back the bushes and find my way again to that branching. I started slowly by incorporating a Bible-Verse-a-Day from a French website into my mix of regular encounters with God.  


Around that same time I was finding my way back to a different fork in the road where I had chosen the wrong path. One that caused a lot more pain. It required hard choices and a wrenching surrendering to get back to where I needed to be. The more I gave up, the more confused I was that it didn’t fix everything. I was having a particularly hard night, after a particularly hard day. As I brought this confusion to my Father, He let me see a hidden assumption implicit in my prayer — now that I had given up so much, He had to do what I asked. He let me see this absurdity buried in my heart with kindness, not condemnation, helping me grasp that it’s really the opposite. The wonder, the gift, is that I get to do what He asks. So I asked Him what He wanted me to do. What did He want me to do as things were so hard in the dark night. And He answered,  ‘Tuck in close.’ So I came near, put my pain, and hurt, and confusion in His lap, and went to sleep…


... and opened my eyes in the morning to this... 

Tu me fais connaître le chemin qui conduit à la vie. Quand tu es là, la joie déborde, auprès de toi, le bonheur ne finit pas!   Psaumes 16.11 PDV


The verse Alliance Biblique Française sent me. Three of the words I was wobbly with, so I took some time to look them up, slowed down enough to see them. Chemin… route, way, path. Conduit... guides, leads, drives. Déborde… inundates, overflows, abounds. What joy does near Him. As I realized this was a continuation of the conversation from the night before, I became wobbly in a different way. Close to Him was my only way through. Living this line was my only hope.  


I spent the next few minutes trying to tuck these French words away in my mind — a new way of thinking in French. Then I went to move on to my next part of the mix of meeting God in His words. As I opened the You Version app, it highlighted on the front page the verse it happened to have chosen for the day…

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalms 16:11 ESV


Ok God, I get it.


​
Noreen Smith

Photo by Nicolas Picard on Unsplash

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