Psalm 38:9

"Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee."

King David starts this psalm by lamenting the affects of sin in his life. The affects are many and are a great burden to him. He is so heavily and thoroughly burdened with it all that he can hardly express it. The affects are not only spiritual but physical. And they are not just internal, but have impacted his relationships. Throughout this psalm he laments the burden of it all.

He also pleads to God for mercy. At the very start he appeals to the LORD to be merciful to him. His words lead one to believe that he knows that his pain is his own making. Yet he appeals to God for mercy, asking that He would not deal with him in the heat of His anger. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And David knows it. As he told Nathan, whom the LORD used to reveal to David His awareness of his sin with Bathsheba, "I have sinned against God." All sin is against God, for God has made it clear what He expects of us. Sadly, we are not in any way capable of keeping His ways. For our nature is to always do that which is against His will. Regardless, He is merciful. And David knows this, too. And so he appeals to God for mercy.

Verse 9 strikes a significant note in the matter. Is not David saying that God knows all of this? It is certainly so that God is omniscient, all knowing. That being the case, God is fully aware of David's plight. He is in fact even more aware of it than is David himself. It is important to see that praying (which this psalm is) is not a method by which we fill God in on the details of what is going on. He does not learn a thing between our saying "Dearest LORD" and our saying "Amen!"

So what, then, is the purpose for praying? Ultimately praying is simply communication between a person and God. Sometimes this means that God will answer in the desired fashion, and sometimes He will not. He is not capricious, but your very act of praying in effect says that you want what He wants. Sometimes what you want is what He wants. And sometimes it is not. This ought not to be a surprise. We understand that God is far greater than we can even begin to take in. Yet sometimes we think that we know better than He in a given situation; as if He has been off on some other task when our particular sorrow or trial came along. We think the matter through, and come to Him with solutions. But if we truly believe that God is almighty, then we must perceive that His plans and intentions, being eternal in nature, may include things that (on the surface) seem to us to be unkind or unfair. But this is the nature of prayer. It is a request made of an infinitely powerful Being by a finite person. When we approach Him, we must realize that we are leaving the matter with Him for His disposal. His own Son prayed, "Not my will but thine be done." Even Jesus had to accept no for an answer from His Father.

But in Psalm 38 David is speaking of that which was his own doing. Some sin in his life, some event in which he turned away from God's ways, has come to roost, as they say. Yet David prays. And he prays for mercy. And he states (in the above verse) that God knows. Well, if David has brought this upon himself, then why should he bother even to pray? What is God going to do about this since, after all, David has gotten himself into this mess? When the LORD revealed Himself to Moses in Exodus 34, one thing He said about Himself was, "... Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin ..." Or, as the hymn writer put it, "Who is a pardoning God like thee? Or who has grace so rich and free?" God desires to show Himself merciful. Or further still, after having caught a glimpse of his awful sin before the LORD, and admitted to Nathan that he had sinned against God, Nathan told him, "The LORD also hath put away this sin; thou shalt not die." David paid a price for his sin, but not an eternal one. God had put his sin away.

David's appeal in Psalm 38:9 is that God knows all about his case. And even though it is of his own doing, he knows that he can find mercy before God. He knows that God is fully aware of all things. And he knows that God is merciful. He throws himself upon God, looking for that which only God can supply, forgiveness. In the end of Psalm 38, David says, "Forsake me not, O LORD; O my God be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation." Now it is up to God.

Through the LORD Jesus Christ forgiveness is available to all that call upon Him. For God poured out His wrath against sin upon His Son. There is no judgment left, except for one, What did you do with Jesus? Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:17-19, "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." Sad to say, Jesus is telling him that not everybody will believe and find forgiveness. But to everyone who does believe there is forgiveness and no condemnation. Paul told the Romans, "There is, therefore, no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus ..." For those who believe, we, like David may pay a price for sin we commit, but not an eternal one. The matter of eternity was settled at the cross.

HJK