Penitence

There’s been a lot on my mind lately (as there always is), and I confess what I bring to the table tonight is nothing new.  It is, however, something worth revisiting.

The psalms are an incredible place to spend some time.  In times past, I have often taken the psalms for granted.  I appreciated the prophets for their blunt honesty in dealing with sin, the gospels for the portrayal of Jesus, and the epistles for practical daily living, but I often did not appreciate the psalms for being what they are.  I now appreciate them more.  I’ve been involved with an on-campus study in the psalms and it has been a very humbling study.  In this study, I’ve come to grips with one of the hardest of topics: repentance.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a perfect man.  I’ve messed up quite a bit.  Inevitably, I find myself coming back to God time and time again for repentance.  That’s true of humanity in general, but what I have paid special attention to lately is the way that we pray our prayers of repentance and the way we ask for forgiveness.  In Psalm 38, David says in verses 4-9 “For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness, I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning. For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart. O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you.” 

How do I pray?  I definitely don’t pray like David.  As a matter of fact, most of the time I try to get it over with as soon as possible so that I can feel okay again.  It’s more along the lines of  “God, I sinned, please forgive me” than “My wound stink and fester because of my foolishness.”  That leads me to what I believe the cause of this is.  In the Bible study as the three of us were talking, I realized that I am not the only one that says prayers that simple.  We all do.  Why?  I believe I know the answer, if for no one else for myself, and I doubt that I am the only one who does so for this reason.  My problem is that I am more concerned about being feeling okay again than I am about what it is that I have done to God. 

I remember one time when as a kid I had misbehaved during church.  My mother told me that I would get a spanking when we got home, but when we got home she forgot.  I reminded her.  Pretty dumb kid, right?  But do you know why I did it?  I didn’t like the anxious anticipation.  I wanted to get it over with.  That had absolutely nothing to do with being sorry for what I did (which I don’t remember), I just wanted the knot in my stomach to go away.

Sometimes we act like that with God.  We aren’t really sorry for what we’ve done, we just want to feel okay again.  May I challenge you the next time you go before God in prayer, read Psalm 38 first and think about why you’re really praying.  Don’t aim for stress relief.  Aim for penitence.