Psalms continually offers up “nuggets” of wisdom and insight for us, and these passages are no exception.
A line that jumps out at me in the 32nd Psalm is “when I refused to confess my body wasted away” (verse 3). Today I choose to remember that sin is corrosive, and until it is confessed it will eat away within me. I take extra precautions when working with Muratic Acid (cleaning mortar off stone work) donning gloves and goggles, and often a mask. If any splashes on me, especially on my face, I immediately douse the area with water. I want to do whatever I can to get the acid off me. In the same way, someone who has a metastatic form of cancer takes every treatment measure they can in order to rid their body of the offending cells. I need to learn to view sin in the same way. It isn’t something I can tuck away in a corner of my life where everyone will forget about it and it won’t cause any harm. Wherever I keep it, it will begin to rot the place away. Black mold got into our home several years ago, and we had to take drastic measures to get rid of it. Sin is like black mold.
How is it that David understood this key concept, and yet two thousand years later we still are ignoring sin in our lives? Are we ever going to learn?
Forgiveness is what God wants to do for us. God loves us and wants to forgive. As upset as I am about sin in my life, God is even more upset. The difference is, He can eradicate it if I will allow Him. By myself, I can do nothing. Forgiveness brings joy, relief from pressure, a new hope and lease on life, and a new outlook. The person who is forgiven understands that their name is written in God’s “Book of Life”, that great volume kept in heaven which records the name of every person who is allowed to enter in.
David sinned…apparently several times while he was a ruler. We don’t know the details or the severity, but we know that it happened. And when he sinned he learned not to try and hide it, because that only made the situation worse, even affecting his health. He learned to confess quickly, and enjoy the favor of God. The wonderful thing is that God never grows tired of forgiving us. He longs to forgive us, even when we commit the same offense a second or third time.
(Now, if we repeat the same sin 20 times and ask for forgiveness, I suppose God would still forgive…but forgiveness is generally an action by God based on our repentance (repentance means being sorry enough for your actions to change). “I am sorry that this was noticed, or that you caught me” isn’t a motivation for God to decree forgiveness.)
A few thoughts…..hopefully they stir up thoughts of requesting forgiveness, or spontaneous praise for God’s continual love for us!
Faithfully,
PR