Keeping Your Word

This morning I was reading Psalm 15 - and I hope you are too. It is a relatively short psalm, so having read it once, I was reading it again - savoring each of the phrases. And as I did so, I asked myself, "Which one jumps out at me? Which one draws my attention?"

There are several weighty thoughts and powerful images throughout Psalm 15. So much seemed to be jumping out and arresting my attention I had a hard time deciding.

So I took a break. I refilled the bird feeder and hung it out, and I was soon joined by five adolescent cardinals, a lesser goldfinch, and a female painted bunting. The bird feeder gets a lot of use in the early morning!

As I was watching the birds and thinking about an upcoming breakfast meeting, I finally received my answer. What jumped out at me from Psalm 15? It was the last phrase of verse 4. Here was the phrase that kept coming back to me. Here was a phrase I couldn't drive from my mind.

He swears to his own hurt and does not change;

It is awkwardly phrased in the New American Standard. The New Living Translation renders it:

and keep their promises even when it hurts.

The Holman Christian Standard Bible says:

who keeps his word whatever the cost. 

This is a passage about integrity. About trustworthiness. About keeping promises. About being a man or woman of your word.

And this descriptive phrase is used to describe the kind of person who may dwell in the presence of the Lord (see verse 1). God desires that we all be people who keep our promises. God desires that we all be people whose word can be trusted and relied upon. God desires that we all be people of integrity and courage when it comes to our interactions with others.

But the sad fact is that this quality is not truly valued in our society these days. Promises are lightly made and lightly held. We trust more in the power of legal contracts and lawyers than we do in each other's integrity - even our own. We certainly never mean to promise anything that might actually cost us something!

But as the people of God, we have been called into an alternate community with a different set of values. We have been drawn into a different kingdom from any kingdom or nation on this earth. Our values are not bound to our selfish desires or our national desires. Our values are revealed to us from God. Chief among these is love, and one of the marks of love is dealing fairly and honestly and respectfully with others. We are not to affirm bad choices, but we are not to manipulate and mislead others for our own gain either. Psalm 15 is a guideline for our behavior. And catching us near the end of this psalm is the challenge to be people who do what they say they will do - even if the keeping of our word is costly to us.

I pray that I will be such a person.

Will you pray that you will be such a person too?