Slight curve ball this week, we are digging around in the Psalms. If you are finding your way around the bible for the first time, the Psalms are a great place to start. Real life stories of individuals and communities learning to live in a relationship with God. The highs, the lows, the battles and the failures. It is all here and makes for incredible reading.
07. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5
I have read the bible from front to back and have been following Jesus for about 30 years but only last month did a mate show me this verse and it was like I had never seen it before.
If you are anything like me you have messed up your life in a few ways and found yourself dealing with the consequences of those actions. Of course, the way we mess up and the scale of the impact will vary greatly and scar and mark our lives accordingly.
However, I think one of the things that lingers and sticks to us all, regardless of what the mistake was, when it was or who it hurt, is that guilt can fuse itself to us and not let go.
Guilt over that action, the people who were hurt and the person you had become can shape our lives in the most drastic ways, but they don’t need too.
I have read so many times that I am a free man and my relationship with Jesus means that I can know that forgiveness and freedom now, fully. But do I experience that freedom? Or does the guilt strangle and choke it out of me before it even becomes a reality?
Here is the thing, David, the bloke who wrote this Psalm messed up, but he found freedom from guilt and this is important. He took his sin and mistakes to God, without mask or veneer and God forgave him, for the mistake and the guilt.
David found freedom from the guilt of his sin and mistakes, he found freedom!
We are not supposed to be slaves to sin or trapped in guilt and the web of lies that it so often creates around us. That doesn’t change the reality of the mistake, its impact and devastation, but it can bring healing. Maybe this verse should be a lot higher than number 7 but all the same, here it is. Free men!
Image Credit: Aaron Burden
