Walk, Work, Speak

¹“Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.” (Psalms 15:1-2). Isn’t it great when we are trying our best and standing tall and walking uprightly and all of our hard efforts seem to be rewarded? When we are obedient to God’s commandments, we are blessed. He helps to make our paths straight and remove the obstacles and stumbling blocks before us. But not all of us get to walk uprightly on the gospel path. For some of us, it is not a smooth, straight road. We really have to work at it to make any progress. We may have to get down on our hands and knees and crawl through dark and cramped caves, or else climb over boulders, or stagger and stumble across treacherous footing. Are those who must work at their righteousness also permitted to abide in the Lord’s tabernacle, and to dwell in His holy hill. Of course! Sometimes we get to walk uprightly and sometimes we have to work through blood, sweat and tears to make it back up that holy hill, but we are still welcome either way. But there are some of us who can neither walk nor work. What then? When life has beaten us down so many times that we can no longer get up and all that we have left is to speak the truth in our hearts, we can at least do that. And that can be enough. A man stricken with palsy could neither walk uprightly nor work through the pain to crawl his way to be healed by Jesus, but his friends walked, and his friends worked so hard they were literally tearing the roof off of the place where Jesus was teaching and lowered the man down on a rope. Jesus did not say to this man, sorry, you did not work and you did not walk, so your sins cannot be forgiven. He forgave the man’s sins and he healed him because when he could do nothing else, he spoke the truth in his heart. If we can walk then let us walk, and if we can work then let us work, but if we can do neither, then let us at least speak the truth in our hearts. We too will find that a place in our Father’s tabernacle and on His holy hill has been prepared for us.