He Delights to Give You Mercy
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Psalm 32:1
Sometimes when we finally confess something that we’ve held in for a long time we might say, “Wow, that felt really good to get off my chest!” When you step back and listen to the phrase it sounds pretty weird, but it actually makes perfect sense.
Think about it: maybe one time you lied to your parents and it felt awful to do but you did it anyway just to keep from getting in trouble. Then as the days passed you started to feel really bad. In fact, you started to feel weight, almost like someone was sitting on your chest! You may have felt so bad that it almost felt like you couldn’t breathe, but then in a moment of clarity you came and confessed to your parents that you had lied. It was like you could finally breathe again!
David, who the Bible calls a ‘man after God’s own heart’, tried to hide his sin too. In fact, he tried to cover up murder and adultery! “Really,” you might ask, “how was he a ‘man after God’s own heart’ if he did such horrible things?”
Well, the Bible is pretty clear that we all do bad things, David included, but the question is whether we try to then fix ourselves or bring our sin to God (the only one who can fix us). David wrote poems (or Psalms) about his struggle to confess his sin, and the amazing joy he found when he finally did (Psalm 32 and 51 are great examples).
First, he describes what it’s like when he tried to “hide” his sin, or “cover it up” himself. He says, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away…day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer” (Ps. 32:3-4).
Ugh! Trying to handle our own sin only makes us feel like all our energy is zapped…like our bones are wasting away.
But then he turns and says, “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover it up; I said, “I will confess my sin to the Lord.” And you almost wonder what God’s response will be, right? Murder? Adultery? And then David simply says, “You forgave my sin.”
You see, God knows you do wrong, but he doesn’t want you to run away and try to fix it yourself and then come back to him and say, “See, I took care of it! I’m all better now!” No, that’s crazy because you can’t fix it.
God wants you to run to him instead of away from him…no matter what you’ve done or how bad it is. The Bible says that God “delights in showing mercy” (Micah 7:18). Did you know that about God? He loves to show mercy to you! Come to him again today because in his presence is the safest place you’ll ever be.