Psalms 119:161-176: in context

Psalm 119, the great psalm celebrating the love of God's law, reaches its end. Through 176 verses the psalmist has praised God's word, rejoiced in it, loved it, obeyed it: those who love your law have great peace, he says, and nothing causes them to stumble; seven times a day I praise you. And yet the very last verse is not a note of triumph but of humble confession: I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments. The psalm ends not with a claim of arrival but with a plea to be sought.

The ending of this psalm is remarkable and searching. After all the celebration of loving and keeping God's law, the psalmist does not conclude that he has arrived, that he stands secure in his own faithfulness. He confesses instead that he has gone astray like a lost sheep, and he asks God to seek him. Even this lover of God's word, who has praised and obeyed it through the whole psalm, knows that he wanders, that he strays like a lost sheep, and that his hope is not in his own faithfulness but in God's seeking of him. The psalm of the law ends with a confession of straying and a plea to be sought. This holds a deep humility that guards against self-righteousness even in genuine devotion. It would be easy, after so much love for God's law, to end in a claim of having arrived, of standing secure in one's own faithfulness. The psalmist does not. He knows that even those who love God's word still wander, that our devotion, real as it is, does not make us cease to stray, and that our hope rests finally not on our own faithfulness but on the God who seeks the straying sheep. All we like sheep have gone astray, Isaiah says; and even the devout must confess it. This is not despair but honest humility, and it does not end in hopelessness but in a plea to the God who seeks the lost. And that plea rests on a wonderful truth: that God seeks the straying sheep. The psalmist does not merely lament his wandering; he asks God to seek him, trusting that God is the kind of God who seeks the lost. The shepherd, Jesus says, leaves the ninety-nine and goes after the one that is lost until he finds it. The confession of straying is met by the God who seeks. This searches our own hearts, especially where devotion might breed self-righteousness. Do we, even in our love for God, imagine we have arrived, standing secure in our own faithfulness? Or do we confess, with the psalmist, that we still stray like lost sheep, and cast ourselves on the God who seeks the lost? The great psalm of the law ends, I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant. And we too are called to this humble confession, admitting that we wander even in our devotion, and casting our hope not on our own faithfulness but on the God who seeks the straying sheep and does not rest until he finds them.

Even in my genuine devotion to God, do I imagine I have arrived, standing secure in my own faithfulness, or can the ending of the great psalm of the law, I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, move me to the humble confession that I still wander even as I love God's word, casting my hope not on my own faithfulness but on the God who seeks the straying sheep and does not rest until he finds them?