Steadied as I Walk Along

Daily Office Reflections — September 11, 2026
Psalm 40; Psalm 51; Psalm 54; Job 38:1–17; Acts 15:22–35; John 11:45–54

One of my favorite passages is found at the beginning of Psalm 40:

“I waited patiently for the Lord…”

I am not always sure how patiently I wait.

David describes being lifted out of the mud and mire and having his feet placed on solid ground. Then comes the phrase that caught my attention:

God steadied me as I walked along.

I like that.

I am a pilgrim. I am still walking. At my age, walking and keeping my balance are not quite as easy as they once were, so perhaps those words mean even more to me now.

God does not promise that I will never stumble. God steadies me as I walk.

That brought another Scripture to mind, one I have carried with me since my Bible college days:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.”

I have been thinking particularly about those words:

Lean not unto your own understanding.

They do not mean that I should stop thinking.

God gave me a mind. Reason is one of the ways I seek truth. I study the Sacred Writings. I listen to Tradition. I learn from Experience. I use Reason.

But my understanding is limited.

Sometimes it can even be wrong.

And sometimes the most important thing I can say is:

I don’t know.

Create in Me a Clean Heart

Then I came to Psalm 51.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Traditionally, we connect this Psalm with David’s sin involving Bathsheba and Uriah. Nathan confronted David, and David finally had to see himself truthfully.

That is part of having a right opinion of ourselves.

I can think too highly of myself and assume that I am always right.

I can also think too little of myself and believe that because I have been wrong, I am worthless or beyond hope.

Grace gives me another possibility.

I can admit that I was wrong and change direction.

Perhaps a clean heart is a heart increasingly filled with God’s love—a heart being freed from hatred, prejudice, selfishness, bitterness, fear, and everything else that keeps me from loving God and loving my neighbor.

Jesus describes that kind of life in Matthew 5–7.

He shows us what it looks like in Matthew 25.

Paul describes a community learning to live that way in Romans 13–15.

A clean heart does not mean that I never make another mistake.

It means that, by grace, my heart is increasingly being governed by love.

God Is My Helper

Psalm 54 comes from another difficult time in David’s life. The Ziphites had told Saul where David was hiding.

David cries:

God is my helper.

That reminds me of Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

But I have learned something else along the way.

God’s help does not always look the way I think God’s help should look.

James was killed.

Stephen was stoned.

Peter was delivered from prison.

I cannot build a formula from those different outcomes.

God’s help is certain.

The form God’s help takes is not mine to dictate.

Once again, I must be careful about leaning upon my own understanding.

Where Were You?

Then God speaks to Job from the whirlwind.

Job has wanted answers.

His friends certainly thought they had answers. They had explained Job’s suffering to him over and over again.

Then God speaks.

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”

God begins describing creation—the earth, the seas, the morning, light and darkness, and mysteries far beyond Job’s understanding.

God does not give Job the explanation Job has been demanding.

Instead, God reminds Job that Job sees only a small piece of something much larger.

That is important to me.

Sometimes people have told me that God gave them a word or message for me.

Perhaps they did.

But the Sacred Writings also tell me:

Test the spirits.

Someone else’s certainty does not relieve me of my responsibility to discern.

And neither does my own certainty.

My desires, fears, prejudices, upbringing, experiences, and assumptions can affect what I think I hear.

So I listen.

I study.

I pray.

I reason.

And sometimes I need to become quiet enough to ask:

Holy Spirit, what am I missing?

Discernment is not doubting the Holy Spirit.

Discernment is recognizing that I can misunderstand the Holy Spirit.

It Seemed Good to the Holy Spirit and to Us

Acts 15 gives us a beautiful picture of communal discernment.

The early followers of Jesus were trying to decide what should be required of Gentiles who were coming into the community of faith.

This was not a small disagreement.

Circumcision and the Law were deeply rooted in their tradition.

So they gathered.

They listened.

They discussed.

They considered what God had been doing among the Gentiles.

They listened to testimony.

They considered the Sacred Writings.

And they reached a conclusion expressed in these wonderful words:

“It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.”

I love that.

Not simply:

“We figured it out.”

And not:

“We didn’t have to think because God told us.”

They listened for the Holy Spirit while using the minds God had given them.

But even here I have to be careful.

Because groups can be wrong too.

Another Council Meeting

John 11 gives us another council meeting.

Jesus has just called Lazarus from the tomb.

Some people who witnessed it believed in Jesus.

Others went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

The chief priests and Pharisees called together the council—the Sanhedrin.

And they asked:

What are we going to do?

They were afraid.

If Jesus continued, they reasoned, everyone might believe in him. Then the Romans might come and destroy both their holy place and their nation.

Their fear was not imaginary. Rome was powerful, and Rome could be brutal.

But fear was shaping their understanding.

Then Caiaphas, the high priest, offered what seemed like the practical solution:

It would be better for one man to die than for the whole nation to be destroyed.

And from that day they began plotting to kill Jesus.

What a contrast.

In Acts 15, a council asks in effect:

What is the Holy Spirit doing?

In John 11, another council asks:

What are we going to lose?

Both groups discussed.

Both groups reasoned.

Both groups reached a conclusion.

Both were religious councils.

But agreement does not necessarily mean that we have heard God.

Sometimes I can be wrong.

Sometimes we can be wrong.

So we keep listening.

When Grace Shows Another Way

That brings me back to something else I have been thinking about.

Temptation often offers what appears to be the easier road.

And somewhere before temptation becomes a decision and a decision becomes an action, grace can provide a way of escape.

A Scripture may come to mind.

Someone may speak to us.

Experience may warn us.

Reason may tell us that something does not add up.

Or perhaps we finally become quiet enough to hear that still small voice.

Then we have a choice.

I have made wrong choices in my life.

I have taken wrong roads.

I have believed things that I later discovered were wrong.

Grace does not require me to pretend otherwise.

Grace gives me permission to admit that I was wrong because grace gives me somewhere to go after I admit it.

Perhaps that is what repentance really looks like.

Metanoia.

A changed mind.

A changed heart.

A changed direction.

A pilgrim is not someone who has always taken the right road.

A pilgrim is someone who, by grace, keeps becoming willing to change direction when he discovers he has taken the wrong one.

And through all of it, I return to those words from Psalm 40:

He steadies me as I walk along.

I can see part of the road.

God sees the whole journey.

So I use the mind God gave me, but I do not ask my mind to be God.

I listen to the Sacred Writings.

I learn from Tradition.

I pay attention to Experience.

I use Reason.

I listen to others.

And then I become quiet.

Holy Spirit, what am I missing?

Lord Jesus, teach me to see.
Lord Jesus, teach me to hear.
Lord Jesus, teach me to understand—and teach me when my understanding is not enough.
Lord Jesus, create in me a clean heart.
Lord Jesus, when I think I have heard, give me the humility to listen again.
Lord Jesus Christ, teach me what to say.
Lord Jesus, teach me when to be silent.
Lord Jesus, teach me to love.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a pilgrim.

Amen.

Still walking. Still learning. Still changing direction when grace shows another way. Still growing in grace.