If knowing where you stand in the sight of God is where we must start, then understanding the desired goal must be the next thing which wisdom requires. Fearing the Lord is where wisdom begins, and understanding grows large and fruitful in the soil of obedience. We must see the constant presence of God, pursuing His pleasure, walking in accordance to His command as the most desirable of lives, the most precious of all possible outcomes... in short, we must hunger and thirst for God, for His ways, for righteousness itself! But joyful promises are ours when we set out on this path, for Jesus promised that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled! Every person who cries out for mercy, hungering and thirsting after righteousness they want but cannot produce, will find their soul abundantly, triumphantly, overflowingly made whole and alive!! This is the rich promise that the psalmist is speaking of when he commends obedience as good understanding. When we begin to walk in this path of right thinking, the blessings flow out of the promises and all things become aligned with Truth. But this walking is not what makes us pleasing in the sight of God, this walking is the product of the fact that we have been made accepted in the Beloved person of Christ. No one can be pleasing who has not first been made new by the blood of Jesus. No one can be cleansed by his own works, but any of us who cry for mercy can be purified by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I beg you, beloved, by the mercies of God, be reconciled to God in Christ. Let His death become your life, and His life will be your righteousness.