Monday, Week 3
Psalm 51:1-6 1
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Reflection: These honest words are the beginning of a psalm of King David, a Psalm tradition tells us he wrote after he was convicted of some really devastating mistakes. He committed adultery with a married woman, tried to conceal the resulting pregnancy, and eventually ordered his adulteress’ husband to be killed in the front lines of battle in an attempt not to sully his reputation. (See the previous two passages above.) These are ugly moves. Yet as horrible as those acts were, David believed he could still approach God. In this text, he asks for mercy and a washing away of wrongdoing. It is almost as if his sinful mistakes cling to him like a second layer of skin. David trusts that God has the power to wash away his sins and he appeals to God based on the faithfulness of God, not his own morality. It is good news that God’s compassion and his interest in transformation—truth in our inward being—results in an invitation to know ourselves as broken and to posture ourselves as students learning God’s ways in our hearts. Prompts for Prayer: Like David, we have made mistakes—recently or in the past—that weigh us down. Sometimes, we either feel disqualified from forgiveness because of how big our errors have been or we justify them based on how small or normal they are. What if we did something else? In an effort to be known by God and to be known as broken, what if we listed out our sins and brought them before God believing it is His faithfulness, not our morality that will secure our forgiveness? When we trust in God’s forgiving nature, it becomes easier to confess sin– to simply share where we have missed the mark of God’s best for our lives. Appropriately, the fourth step is to “make a fearless and searching moral inventory of yourself.” On the next page, boldly and prayerfully list out sins that you have committed or unhelpful patterns or habits you practice. Listen to God’s voice of care, not a voice of condemnation, and let God guide you. Finish by writing out a prayer of confession and praying it to God—the One whose steadfast love and abundant mercy cleanses us. Trust He is with you.
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