"Contentment"

"Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on Thee." (Psalms 25:21) Something has to be said for waiting on the Lord; which means a little more than waiting as one would sit and wait to see a doctor in an emergency room. Just as "keep" from the previous verse had the properties of 'to watch for or wait for', and even the word "preserve" in the verse today has properties of 'to watch or to keep', to "wait" on the Lord is to expect on God or to look eagerly for; not exactly the same feeling you get waiting to see a doctor. The main difference in these two petitions, is that "O keep my soul and delivery me" is asking God's grace to keep us; while "let integrity and uprightness preserve me" is asking for our obedience to His word to keep us. To some, that might sound like our condition of standing with the Lord is based upon works and not by faith; which could not be further from the truth. It is our faith that brings us to a life saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and then the knowledge we are given produces a work in us; which means that our faith produces the work, not the other way around. We do not become pure by striving to be holy; we become pure by the washing of the blood of Jesus Christ; and then we continue to walk in holiness, as He is holy. It is in that frame of mind that we "wait" on the Lord; as a product of His doing, we look to Him completing His work in us; knowing that He will, we are eagerly looking for and expecting His perfect work to be complete in our lives. His perfect work in us is completed by our obedience and our willingness to walk as He would have us to walk; something that requires us to be guided by His word and by His Spirit, and not by our own wants and desires; which is what "contentment" is all about: it's the ability to wait upon the Lord, because all that we need is in Him... "The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." (Proverbs 27:7)