Dismissed!
Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, and revive me in Your ways. Psalm 119:37 NASB
Looking at vanity – The NIV renders the verse, “Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.” A footnote explains that two manuscripts of the Masoretic text and the Dead Sea scrolls justify this reading, but most Masoretic texts read, “preserve my life in your way.” We should not be surprised that these two different readings exist. After all, “in Your way” can only mean “according to Your word” in Hebraic thought. Torah is always the basis of instruction for living. This fact helps us understand the larger meaning of the complete sentence. The Psalmist asks God to turn his eyes from shaw, but we have to know what qualifies as “vanity” or “worthless things” before we can understand his request. “That the primary meaning of šāw ʾ is ‘emptiness, vanity’ no one can challenge. It designates anything that is unsubstantial, unreal, worthless, either materially or morally. Hence, it is a word for idols (in the same way that hebel ‘vanity’ is also a designation for (worthless) idols, for example).”[1] What is shaw? It must be what Torah defines as worthless, either materially or morally. It doesn’t matter what the culture or our traditions or our inclinations say. If Torah declares something shaw, then by definition, it is something to be avoided, in fact, it is not even to be considered.
The verb employed here is ra’a. It means much more than looking at something. It includes the actions of regarding, perceiving, feeling, learning, enjoying and revealing. The Psalmist asks YHVH to cause him to pass over, do away with, take away or alienate him from anything defined as shaw. Now that we see the scope of this request, it’s time to make a list of shaw in our own lives.
What are the things in your life that are outside the boundaries of Torah; the things that you consider, regard, feel, enjoy or decide to learn about? Don’t limit the list to either material or moral categories. Put them all on the table. And don’t evaluate. Just write down what comes to mind as quickly as you can before your yetzer ha’ra has a chance to edit. Then step back. Ask God to turn your eyes away from whatever was on that list. Ask Him to replace those desires, tendencies and enjoyments with His own according to His word. Ask Him to give you specific guidance from Torah so that there will be no debate or confusion about the items on your list. You don’t want leftover inherited morality or cultural expressions. You want the truth!
When you have your list, and you have asked for His analysis of your list, then you will know the meaning of watchfulness, that spiritual discipline that we must learn as we dismiss any and all distractions that interfere with Torah life. None of this will be easy. What’s on your list are those things that really draw you, not the trivial ones you can quickly ignore. What’s on your list are the battlefronts of your character, where denial of desire is a real struggle and feels like defeat rather than victory. But these are the things that burn our eyes, and we must learn to turn away with the help of the Lord. We must be willing to say, “Dismissed!” to all shaw, and let true life fill the gaps.
Take that list and burn it.
Topical Index: looking at, ra’a, worthless, shaw, Psalm 119:37
[1] Hamilton, V. P. (1999). 2338) ׁוא. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament.
What I need is love. What I need is to give and receive love. Love IS my vital connection with the moment; with the present, which is the only place I can live. Only in the present can I draw a breath and it actually give me life. Vain responses to the moment are all the ways that I use to avoid my present (I have a lot of them!).
Love is something so vastly greater than what I think we have been conditioned to think of it as. Love encompasses all connections with, and in, reality. Love IS the only way to connect. All other seeming connections are illusions. In my illusion, I can be deceived and believe that I am connected, but, in fact, if I am not matching the actual will of God in that place I am skating on grace. Grace may uphold the righteous but I think grace must just downright carry the wicked entirely! Vanity is where I am believing and acting upon some sort of lie about reality: vanity is where I think I am present and accounted for, but in fact am actually checked out of my present. In those places, surely, YHVH is breathing for me (grace), instead of through me (love). Vanity encompasses all my substitutes for reality. Long list!
To turn and face my fracture each and every moment is to stop and hear the call “where are you?” I don’t want to know where I am, specifically, not! I don’t want to hand over the reins, because I am scared. Why am I scared? Because I still do not know enough about love to believe that it is best for me, all the time. I blame this, to a large extent, on the vast ignorance we are suffering under when it comes to what we believe love actually is. I don’t trust love to carry me in my moments because I do not understand what love actually IS to those moments. I really don’t have a clue as to how comprehensive; how vast; how completely love informs, creates, and joins all of existence, and all of reality. Love IS that reality! Everything else is just a side effect! I don’t trust it to catch me, when, in fact, I represent the only hole in the fabric.
Vanity creates the problem it purports to be solving. Vanity looks around and, because it operates from blindness, interprets the landscape as empty. Vanity grabs at the first straw at hand, and proceeds to attempt to fill the seemingly empty present with: tada! nothing! Vanity is sin because it operates from a lack of faith. Vanity, in fact, I think could be defined as any place where faith is absent. Faith is what holds the next moment open for love to step in. Faith looks at the definition of love, which is the Law, and says, “I will hold a place open that is big enough for love to operate any way it wants to in this place. I will refuse to believe any limiting lie that tells me love (fulfilling the law) is impossible here.” Then, in that place, faith immediately turns around and grabs hold of the will of God, for it takes a will far greater than any we have to accomplish that love. I can choose to have faith that love will work, but I am still sunk if it is up to me to accomplish that love! Vanity is where I think it is all up to me, but any place I believe that is too small a place for Him, and in that place, then, reality truly is empty, but I am the one who made it so. Heaven forbid!