Today's Reading: Psalm 19 & 21

See God, See Yourself

In Psalm 19, David is considering the glory and grandeur of God. He looks around at God’s great creation and he writes about nature and the cosmos around us as being witnesses of God’s greatness and majesty. Although nature cannot speak, he says, it still tells the story of God’s glory and power. Then he goes on to write about God’s written word, which he calls “the Law of the Lord.” He highlights the purity, perfection, and truthfulness of God’s word. He tells us how it has power in our lives to revive our soul, make us wise, enlighten our eyes, and cause our hearts to rejoice.

As David ponders the glory and perfection and purity of God and His word, his heart is convicted of his own shortcomings and sinfulness. He longs to be pure, but realizes the truth that he is not. In this moment, his thoughts turn to God’s grace and kindness. He asks the Lord to help him discern any errors and shortcomings in his life and then he goes one step further and pleads with God to keep him from sin. In verse 13, David prays, “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.” The truth we see here is that any time we see God for who He really is, we simultaneously see ourself for who we really are. God is glorious and majestic and perfect and pure and holy. We are not. We are sinful people with hearts filled with evil. If you haven’t yet seen this truth of your own sinfulness, you haven’t yet seen the glory and grandeur of Yahweh. When you truly see God, you will truly see yourself.

As he ponders God’s glory and his own sinfulness, David first prays that the Lord would keep him from “presumptuous sin.” This is a request asking for God’s help with his day-to-day actions. His outward behavior. He longs to act right. He longs for his life to reflect the goodness of His glorious Lord. Realizing his own inability to keep his outward actions aligned with God’s holiness, he pleads for God’s help in doing so.

David then concludes this Psalm with an amazing prayer requesting that God would govern his inner life. Not only does he want to be kept from outward sin, he desires that his words and his thought life be placed under God’s control so that they please the Lord. David longed for his words and the thoughts of his heart to be acceptable to the Lord. He not only desires a blemish-free outward life, he yearns for a blemish-free inward life – in words and thoughts.

The good news for us is that this is EXACTLY the type of prayer that our loving Heavenly Father longs to answer in our lives. As we acknowledge His glory and our own sinfulness, we can come to Him and humbly pray that He make it a reality that our words and the meditation of our hearts become acceptable in His sight. We cannot achieve this “blemish-free” life of holiness and purity on our own – we must rely fully upon the Holy Spirit to make this our reality.