True Detective

I have told of my ways, and You have answered me; teach me Your statutes. Psalm 119:26  NASB

My ways – God’s history isn’t the only history.  You have one too.  A personal, very private, history of your ways.  All of them.  Most of which you probably wouldn’t want to share in public.  But that history is really who you are.  It’s the Eastwood version of your life: the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Uncovering it, discovering it, confronting it—that what’s therapy is all about whether you seek a professional, a priest, or a friend.  Someone needs to know the story.  And that’s the poet’s point.  He has revealed everything to God.

Now you might say, “Well, so what?  God already knew it all,” and, of course, you would be right, but it’s not the confidant who’s the subject of this action.  It’s “I.”  That’s what matters, because even though God knows, we are often quite hesitant to tell Him.  We allow the yetzer ha’ra to convince us that anything we say to God will increase our shame, and that He really doesn’t want to hear all those bad and ugly things (just like we don’t want to hear ourselves telling them).  If we say them out loud, then somehow they become more real.  They are out there, in the open, even if no one else hears them, because we have to bring them to mind—to our self-awareness—in order to voice them.  Silent confession hardly counts in this arena.  That’s why the poet choses sāpar (to tell, to recount).  “In the Piel stem, the iterative concept, ‘recount’ takes on the added idea of ‘tell,’ ‘declare,’ ‘show forth.’”^[1]  Sāpar is the mathematical telling, listing all the ways.  No glossing over.  No basic categories.  No summaries.  This is laying it all out—one at a time.

You want to take on the character of God, right?  God tells His historical details from beginning to end.  Now we have to do the same.  Oh, it’s so much easier to meditate on our foibles and failures, but that isn’t sāpar.  And unless it’s sāpar, we really can’t expect God to answer, can we?  True confession takes a true detective.  Investigate yourself.  See where you fell from the path.  Do the research and read the report to the One Who knows.  Don’t assume omniscience exempts you from this task.  It isn’t designed for God to know.  It’s designed for you to know—what you really are under the skin, because once you come to terms with that history, then God’s answer arrives.

That word is so meaningful.  “Answer” is ʿānâ I.  It’s the first root.  It means, “to answer, to respond, to speak, to shout, to testify.”  But there’s another root of exactly the same consonants, ʿānâ III.  It means, “to afflict, to oppress, to humble,” precisely what happens when the good, the bad, and the ugly come to the surface.  Without ʿānâ III there isn’t any ʿānâ I.  If you want God’s answer, you need to suffer, to be humbled, to be afflicted.  That’s why the truly blessed are not those whose lives are filled with health, wealth, and security.  They have their reward.  The truly blessed are those who hear God’s answer in the disclosure of their own history.  Like you.

Topical Index: ʿānâ, sāpar, answer, tell, Psalm 119:26

^[1] Patterson, R. D. (1999). 1540 סָפַר. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 632). Moody Press.