Psalm 37 is instruction on how to wait upon the Lord and to avoid evil. Several lines really spoke to me in this passage. Verse 7 says, "Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." One of my most undesirable character traits is patience. One I need to confess over and over, and in verse 8 we are warned, "Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil." When I'm impatient, I fret! A good example of my fretting is during my commutes to work in the morning. Always on the clock to arrive at school for the 7:15 AM swipe-in, I'm like the devil incarnate behind the wheel. School buses, tankers, coal trucks and slow-pokes slowing me down can change me into a raving mad woman! Verse 27 instructs us to "Depart from evil, and do good; so shall you abide for ever; for the Lord loves justice; he will not forsake his saints." I know that evil is upon me when I tail the drivers who get in my way. Are you kidding? Good goes out the window when I pass in no passing zones or beep my horn at the languid Joe bus driver who enjoys every minute of the prospect of making me late! Sainthood becomes an unattainable dream when I'm behind the wheel.
Yes, we're all human! Read, read, read Psalm 38 if you intend to read any of them. Even the most holy succumb to sin. David describes the feeling of abjection so clearly. The misery that comes from sin is the same for me as it is for David, verse 3, "... there is no health in my bones because of my sin"; verse 8, "... I am utterly spent and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart,"; and in verse 10, "My heart throbs, my strength fails me; and the light of my eyes - it also has gone from me."
Like all humans, including David, we reach the point where the weight of our sin must be purged in order to find our peace with God and with ourselves. "I am ready to fall," David cries in Psalm 38, verse 17, "and my pain ever with me." The need for confession is part of all of us and in David's next line, he too confesses, "I confess my iniquity, I am sorry for my sin!"
So many times we say things that we wish that we could take back. David speaks of this human weakness, the sin of the tongue in Psalm 39. As I've grown older, I realize how foolish I have been in my lifetime in speaking before carefully examining my words. If the law was to cut off tongues for verbal transgressions, mine would have been sliced off long ago. Like David describes, when we speak out of turn, we often do so out of distress. The fire burns within us, and we blow it out our mouths. For defense, David asks God, "Bridle my mouth, so long as evil is in my presence."
On the sixth of June, 1993, I highlighted Psalm 40: 9-11. I don't know why. I wish I could remember. My son was 3 1/2 yeas old and my daughter was 7 1/2 years old, and I was 33 at the time. Something must have stood out in that passage for me to make note of it. David wrote this Psalm after the war with Absalom and taking the throne. It is a Psalm of praise and petition. For today, verse 11 touches me the most, "Do not thou, O Lord, withhold thy mercy from me, let thy steadfast love and thy faithfulness ever preserve me." The words "preserve me." Yes, that's what I need, preserved, in more ways than one. My prayer petition today, Dear Lord, preserve me and all whom I love, preserve us from sin, preserve us from loneliness, preserve us from inaction, and preserve us from illness. Please, God, preserve us most of all for You!
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