There is an annual ritual for high school athletes to sign letters of intent to attend and play for a particular university. The event is celebrated with a ceremony and proclaimed in local media. In a way, Psalm 101 is a letter of intent for a king, ruler, prince, politician, and us. As you read the psalm, notice the “I will” statements.
“A psalm of David. I will sing of your love and justice, Lord. I will praise you with songs. I will be careful to live a blameless life— when will you come to help me? I will lead a life of integrity in my own home. I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar. I hate all who deal crookedly; I will have nothing to do with them. I will reject perverse ideas and stay away from every evil. I will not tolerate people who slander their neighbors. I will not endure conceit and pride. I will search for faithful people to be my companions. Only those who are above reproach will be allowed to serve me. I will not allow deceivers to serve in my house, and liars will not stay in my presence. My daily task will be to ferret out the wicked and free the city of the Lord from their grip.” (Psalm 101, NLT)
King David is laying out a path for his administration in this psalm. These are the milestones and markers that he intends. They are statements of intent. Phrases such as I will, I intend, I aim to, I desire to statements are forward-looking hopeful guardrails for whatever comes next.
David’s intentions are to seek the Lord, seek a blameless life lived with integrity, turn from that which violates that integrity, carefully weigh his dealings and relationships, and positively impact his kingdom. We can join with David in these intentions.
We can choose to worship our Lord and glorify His love and justice. We can seek to live a blameless life, although even David admits that He needs to Lord’s help for that. We can strive to live a life of integrity both privately and publicly. We can intend to turn away from looking at anything vile and vulgar. Harder to do nowadays as social media shoves all kinds of vulgarities at us. We can intend to choose honest folks to do business with and folks of integrity to keep as companions. We can get involved when we see evil, even if it costs us something.
Looking through David’s list may seem a bit challenging. We can boil these down to an intention to choose the straight path rather than the twisted and crooked path. Love, justice, worship, integrity, purity, honesty, goodness, humbleness, and faithfulness are signposts of the straight path. The crooked path is identified by being lovers of self, hypocrisy, injustice, vulgarity, cheating, twisted ideas, pride, fickleness, liars, and evil.
We may look at our neighborhood, culture, country, and world and determine that we are surrounded by crookedness. We may not have a kingdom like David, but we do have areas of responsibility, which are, in a way, kingdoms. Those are found in our home, our work, our family, our church, and ourselves. In those areas, do we intend and purpose to live a life of love, justice, and integrity pleasing to God and a witness to our world?
My challenge for you today is to write your own version of Psalm 101 by creating a list of “I will” intentions. Know upfront that while the benefit is enormous, there may be a cost; the crooked ones often get even more bent out of shape when they encounter someone of integrity.
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