Psalm 38 - Sin's Sickness

LINK: Psalm 38 (Amplified) & Psalm 38 (The Message)

BACKGROUND

This is another "penitential psalm" of David. It is very similar to Psalms 6 and 32 that we will read tomorrow.

"No soundness of flesh" (38:3) means "no health in my body" (NIV).

During my last day of prayer, I meditated on it in the Amplified Bible because I loved the imagery that it evoked. The Message also does a good job. Imagine "arrows" of conviction from the Lord or His hand pressing You because of your sin. What would it be like to have a "flood wave" of iniquity crashing over your head? Meditate on this and imagine this in your meditations. (Then you can imagine a "flood wave" of love because God wants your repentance to be wrapped in His love!)

David's sin led to many health problems, it separated him from God and others, and caused him to be very lonely!  Sin is not something to hold on to. We need to confess and let it go.

REFLECTION

Sin can sometimes make us sick! Not all sicknesses are caused by sin, but some are. Why do we sin then? 

Ignatius of Loyola had a very interesting perspective on the reason for sin:

God is the generous giver, showering us with blessings like the sun shining on the earth. If we truly understood this, we would return God's love with love. We wouldn't sin. Gratitude is a good word for this fundamental quality of our relationship with God. Ingratitude, our blindness to who God truly is, is thus the root of all sin. 

(God Finds Us: An Experience of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, p. 61)

Simone Weil, philosopher, mystic, and activist (1909-1943) said:

"Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness." 

I think they both are related. I think Ignatius had it right at the root, and I think when we have an incorrect view of God and his ability to be a generous giver, we feel empty, and we do things that try to fill that emptiness apart from God. It relates to 2 Peter 1:2-4. The New American Standard Version translates it best:

Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. 

True and accurate knowledge of God (the Greek word implies personal, true, and correct with an understanding of the benefits of that). So if we really understood God as the generous giver. We would be less inclined to sin.

I remember exactly where I was in the 80s when this hit me. I had struggled for a long time with a besetting sin, and God gently showed me more of his character through these verses.

Praying we fly TO the Generous Giver of everything we need for life and godliness. The only One who can fill that emptiness! 

APPLICATION

Take time today and ask God to reveal your emptiness to you and how you are trying to fill that void.  

In Your presence is FULLNESS of joy;

In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

Psalm 16:11

A daily Examen helps you to respond in gratitude to God and his generous gifts of that day, helping you to see where He has been with You. Then, you can see where you did not respond to Him. It puts sin in the "bubble wrap" of His love. He wants to see you partake of the divine nature. He really does!

PRAYER

Lord, bring us back to Your presence and right hand. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.