Psalm 32

NOTE: On May 30th I am moving to North Carolina. I have already prepared meditations for the next several days and they are scheduled to be posted at 6:30 AM each morning. However, I may not be able to respond to your email inquiries for the next few days.

Thirty-five years ago I visited a young man in the hospital. Our paths had crossed when he was a youth and I had heard he was facing many criminal charges and that his life was a mess. In his despair he had tried to take his own life. In our visit, I shared with him how God had been working in my life, and I encouraged him to not give up. As we prayed together I felt his tears dropping on my hands.

The next day he called me. He said that after our visit he had taken the Gideon Bible off of the bedside table and opened it. The first passage he saw was Psalm 32. As we talked, it was clear my friend was experiencing the joy of those “whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered,” and the happiness of “those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity.” My friend had absolutely nothing he could offer God, nothing but a cry for mercy, based on Christ’s love for him. He cried out, God forgave him and crowned him with new life in Christ.

My friend Bud Harkey was a student at Asbury College in 1970 when God moved in a mighty way, and many, many lives were transformed. He told me the igniting point was when a member of the Asbury community confessed her sin and cried out to God for forgiveness. After that there were Chapel services, for weeks, where students would give their witness. They would tell about how God was dealing with them about sin in their life, and then they told how God had brought forgiveness and restoration. Then somebody in the audience who would say, ‘that’s like me’ and then that person would come under conviction and come forward and kneel at the altar.

My young friend’s experience was the same. He humbly, authentically, confessed his sin to God and cried out for forgiveness, and then he experienced forgiveness and restoration. Many churches try desperately to connect to their community, to get their neighbors to come to church. Perhaps, if those churches first got on their faces and humbly, authentically, confessed their sin to God and cried out for forgiveness, perhaps God would move, not only in their lives, but their community as well.

No, not perhaps. Pray, trust Psalm 32, and God will fulfill His Word:

It is the same with my word.

    I send it out, and it always produces fruit.

It will accomplish all I want it to,

    and it will prosper everywhere I send it.

Isaiah 55:11

Sē’lah

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What word or phrase in today’s reading of the Psalms

 attracts your attention?

Reflect on that word or phrase.

What insights come to you?

How does this passage touch your life today?

Reading for June 3, 2012   Psalm 33