A sober self-assessment

[From May 30, 2012]

"And now, O LORD, what do I wait for?  My hope is in you.  Deliver me from all my transgressions."

(Psalm 39:7-8a)

The Psalms are Israel's prayerbook.  A virtual compendium of all sorts of prayers, pleas and petitions.  "Rescue me from..." "Deliver me out of the hands of..." "Save me from..." are frequent phrases in the Psalms.  We all have people and situations we need God's saving hand from.

And yet, at the heart of Psalm 39, I got a bit of a surprise: "Deliver me from all of MY transgressions."  Same me from myself, God!  Rescue me from my sins.  This is an honest, sober, mature assessment of one's reality.

At times, we are our own worst enemy.  The apostle Paul put it so bluntly in the New Testament when he said, "The things I know I should do, I don't do.  And the very things I know I shouldn't do, I do!  What a wretched man I am!"  We've all been there, haven't we?

When Paul asked (rhetorically) what can rescue him from himself, the answer was ONLY JESUS.  Indeed!  Rescue me, Lord, from my sinfulness.  Erase the darkness I've let into my life.  Fill it with your healing light of grace.  AMEN.