Friday
Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Psalm 19:12-14
This passage is David’s conclusion to his great poem of praise. Psalm19 is really all about the word of God, the word of God in nature, and the word of God in Scripture. It might not be obvious at first glance, but David is concluding by pointing out the ultimate purpose of God’s Word.
“Who can discern his errors?” What a question that is! It indicates that we are all victims of hidden failure in our lives. When we examine ourselves we usually look fine. The book of Judges says that at times in that period of Israel's history "...every man did what was right in his own eyes." That permits just about anything, and the resulting chaos was (and still is) terrible.
Everybody thinks that what he does is right. It is often not the big obvious sins that are the most dangerous in our lives. It is the sins we cannot, or will not see that have the potential to do the most damage. The truth is that we cannot see our own errors. Yet these errors, these twists, these distortions of our attitudes and thoughts, are constantly affecting us so that we cannot see truth the way it is. We do not understand it in nature and we do not understand it in the Word. Therefore we desperately need to be delivered from hidden errors. In the New Testament the Apostle Peter says,
Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation (1 Peter 2:1-2)
That is what is wrong, that is what hinders our desire for the Word - these hidden errors. The Psalmist (David) faces the fact that something is wrong with the reader. So he concludes this Psalm with a simple but powerful prayer: "Forgive hidden faults." Is that your prayer? Do you know what will happen when you pray that way? We would like to think that God would just wave his divine hand and instantly whoosh away all trace and memory of our sin. But God rarely does it that way. His way of dealing with hidden faults is usually either to send somebody to point them out to you or to bring them out through some circumstance in which you are suddenly confronted with what you have done or said and you find that it is ugly and you do not like it. That is the way God cleanses us from hidden faults. He opens up the secret places.
In my experience, God usually he does it through other people because, as God well knows, we cannot see ourselves but other people can see us. These faults are hidden to us but not to others. They see them very plainly. And we can see their hidden faults better than they can. You can see the faults of somebody you are thinking about right now, better than they can. You probably think, "I don't see how they can be so blind." Well, someone is probably thinking that very same thing about you!
Finally, David closes with these often quoted words, which are so penetrating that we should say them together as our closing prayer:
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Let the words of my mouth - what I say, and the meditation of my heart - what I think, be the kind of words and thoughts that have sat under the authority of Your Word, Oh God. Let my thoughts, actions and speech reflect the instruction, the light, and the love of your heart, so that what I am, both inside and outside - be acceptable and pleasing before you.
Jeff Frazier
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1 comment:
Matthew 18:20 - "For where two or three gather in My name, there am I with them."
We can discern our own errors as well as our lawnmower can diagnose it's own broken parts.
I thank God for the people in my life who've loved me enough to wade through my exterior and know me well enough to point out my faults, to tell me what I don't want to hear.
It's then that I remember the last line of matthew 18:20 "I am with them"
I am desperate to be with God. And he is so gracious that he makes it easy: Be with at least one other person in his name. It may not be easy to hear what they point out, but if the option is to be without God then I'll take the pain of listening. Thank you God
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