Psalm 32:1-7
Blessed is the one whose fault is removed,
whose sin is forgiven.
2 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no guilt,
in whose spirit is no deceit.
3 Because I kept silent, my bones wasted away;
I groaned all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength withered as in dry summer heat.
Selah
5 Then I declared my sin to you;
my guilt I did not hide.
I said, “I confess my transgression to the Lord,”
and you took away the guilt of my sin.
Selah
6 Therefore every loyal person should pray to you
in time of distress.
Though flood waters threaten,
they will never reach him.
7 You are my shelter; you guard me from distress;
with joyful shouts of deliverance you surround me.
All Fridays are penitential days, not just the Lenten ones we try to take more seriously. And Lent is only 4 days away! (Time flies when we are weighed down by a pandemic, right?)
Our psalmist speaks of the “heaviness” of God’s hand upon him for his unconfessed sins, a metaphor for the suffering his conscience is going through because he will not acknowledge his sins, in the first place even to himself. He would rather not think about them at all, yet at some level, he knows he is not being honest with himself. They may be minor sins, but they irritate and rub and chafe continually like a small stone in his shoe, leaving every day to be faced with soreness and a limp.
It is not as if God does not know what is going on with the psalmist or with us. This is about our trying to live in God’s Presence on a less-than-honest basis. As long we cling to our illusions about our wholeness and goodness, we throw up roadblocks to healing and advancing in life-as-God-sees-it-for-you-and-for-me.
Openly acknowledging what we know and what God knows, even if it is the same thing every day, will let us walk with God in truth, at least for a few steps.
He’s patient.
Jim, just letting you know that the description of your Bible studies on the page that directs us here still says that commentary is being offered only on Tuesday.
Thanks again for this great series.
Gay