Year 2, Day 280: Psalm 143

Psalm 143

I love the psalms of David.  David is simply so brutally honest.  He doesn’t speak with the most profound vocabulary.  He doesn’t pontificate very often. {Yes, I thought the word pontificate was precisely the right word for that sentence!  LOL} David sees a topic, says his peace, let’s the chips fall where they may, and is honest.

David is also straight-forward.    He doesn’t paint a rosy picture when the scene is dark.  He doesn’t force himself to be happy when his situation leads him into depression.  On the flipside, he doesn’t find reasons to be troubled when he’s happy, either.  David’s psalms are often “just what the doctor ordered” for me when it comes to the psalms.

On that note, I love the way David speaks to God in the opening part of this psalm.  I can just imagine David walking around on his rooftop having conversation with God.  The conversation goes something like this:

“Listen, God.  You don’t have to judge me.  I completely and totally confess that I’m guilty.  There is no chance – absolutely no chance – of my vindication if you really want to convict me.  So … seriously.  Don’t even waste your time judging me.  I screwed up.  I’ve screwed up a lot.  In fact, we’ve all screwed up.  Who can honestly think that they can come into your presence as even remotely think that they have any chance if you actually judge them?  So instead of wasting your time judging me, can I just plead guilty and then can we move straight into the whole mercy deal?”

David is so forthright in the opening of this psalm.  Who can stand before God and think for a second that they aren’t guilty?

But there is something else – something that reaches far more deeply back into my roots.  There is something … cathartic … about the opening of this psalm.  It feels good to get that confession out into the air.  It feels good to acknowledge that we’ve screwed up.  It feels genuinely good to know that without God’s Messiah we have no chance to stand in His presence.  It feels cathartic because once we know that we know the answer!  Through our confession we are prepared to embrace the answer!  Through our confession we can move past the problem and into the solution.  That is what confession does for us.  That is why so many of David’s psalms start with confession.

Then we get to the meat of this psalm.  I’m going to bring out a point that a spiritual friend of mine brought out in the comments of a psalm a few psalms back.  David makes a great point in the heart of the psalm.  David says – as he said in the prior psalm I just referenced – “I can’t do this without you, God.  My enemies are lining up.  They’ve circled around me.  They make me hide in darkness.  They make my spirit grow faint.  I just can’t do this without you.  Help me to remember your steadfast faith and love.”

David’s words in this psalm are incredible.  Confession leads to truth (and a bit more confession).  David needs God.  David can’t do it without Him.  Note the word I used: can’t.  Without God, the enemies win.  Without God, David crumbles.  Am I so different from David?

Then we reach the end of this psalm.  David cries out to remind the Lord that it is for the sake of God’s name that David is asking to be saved.  David isn’t asking to save his own neck; David wants to preserve God’s name.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure David wants to continue to live and escape his torment.  But it is for the sake of the Lord’s name that David wants to be saved.  If David goes down here – and we all know that God backed David – then what will people say about God?  David is genuinely seeking to be saved so that nobody will have anything bad to say about God.

I really like where this psalm is leading me.  The things I do should be for the sake of the Lord.  The prayers I pray should be for the sake of the Lord.  The words I say should be for the sake of the Lord.

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