The Introduction Matters
“O LORD, rebuke me not in Your wrath, and chasten me not in Your burning anger.” Psalm 38:1 NASB
Rebuke me not– Have you ever prayed like this: reaching the point, long after the Lord redeemed you, long after you recognized your sinful condition and your desperate need for grace, you are still overwhelmed by the fear of God’s judgment? Apparently David did. David doesn’t address God in formal terms. This is not a recitation from the Common Book of Prayer. This is right from the heart.
The opening phrase is often written in much smaller type in our Bibles. In most of our texts, it isn’t even a numbered verse. But it’s important. “A psalm of David. To bring to remembrance.” What is it that David wants to remember? His sinful acts. His rebellious disobedience. These are usually the last things we want to recall. We stuff them away in the “forgiven and forgotten” closet, hoping that our fellow human beings are as willing to throw them into the depths of the sea as God is. But not David. He deliberately brings them to mind. He may not be confessing some specific indiscretion in the following verses, but he is clearly thinking about actions that he took against his God. It is that totality of perversity that weighs on his soul. He looks back and sees the amassed accumulation of his sin. He sees that over and over, in spite of grace and forgiveness, he has wandered from the path of righteousness. The fiery brand of guilt sears his soul with an indelible imprint. He doesn’t deserve God’s love or God’s favor. Like Isaiah, he wails, “Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips.”
We live in an era of “forget-forgiveness.” We put the emphasis on the dismissalof our unrighteous catalog of thoughts and behaviors. We compartmentalize guilt. It belongs on the shelf right alongside those old toys and discarded high school yearbooks. Don’t remind us of our past failures, please. We are a people fixated on the future. Look ahead, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you memory erasers. No, says David. I need to remember. I need to know what I am really like without Him. I need to remind myself that I am not so capable, not so wonderful, not so spiritual. There is no credit due me in this life. My memories are useful deflators of ego. They show me what I would certainly prefer to forget, but when I forget I have the tendency to pretend that I am not really like the person who cheated on his spouse, defrauded his employer, lied to his children, took advantage of his friends. Kodak moments must register the capacity of my sinfulness. If all I recall are the moments of light and joy, what reason will I have for coming back with thanksgiving? Memory cancels pride. Remember.
David uses the Hebrew word zakar here. He wants “to bring to memory,” “to cause to be remembered.” One nuance of this verb is the idea of acknowledgement. Yes, I am forgiven. But also yes, I need to acknowledge the reason that I must be forgiven. Lord, let me remember – and worship You.
Topical Index: forgive, forget, remember, Psalm 38:1
For some of us it is not that we need to remember….we remember all too well, all too often, and way too severely. Some know all too well what they are really like without Him and are reminded of it in too many ways, by too many people, by too many memories. We are constantly reminded by ourself and others that we are “not so capable, not so wonderful, not so spiritual. There is no credit due me in this life”…and I’m short of cash as well.
I bought my wife a Bible, “The Scriptures” translated by the Institute for Scripture Research. There website describes it as, “a literal translation of the Bible in English. This translation differs significantly from most common English translations in that it has restored the original book order of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh, and restored the Name of the Most High, (יהוה) throughout.” HOWEVER, they completely leave out all of these intro verses in the Psalms. They don’t even miniaturize it and leave it as an unnumbered verse. They erase it! Pretty shocking and disappointing.
Fads tend to do that…. Exalt something as an incredible truth, as a marketing tool, whilst still as forgetful of earnestly placing all the words before us with integrity as the integral communal pieces of a living calling into the Way. It is good the order doesn’t give us the mind numbing Kings and Chronicles back to back, though. The more I have looked into translations you see the pattern of disassembling & reassembling someones work very minimally, and perhpas I am cynical in this but it seems for a market share to overcome copyright law. We live in a copy and past fast food society. This laziness is still allowing the appeals to a ‘righteousness of our own’ from the brands of men instead of greater literacy of heart toward God. The perfect translation I do not know but the perfect translator is worth getting to know. Maybe ISR should be called a literal translation of AN English translation of the literal bible…..That is why discussions in these forums are so important to aid our hearts to be touched by His Words. Fresh whole food to chew on. Shalom to all. FJ
David’s life was tumultuous.
At times, so has been mine.
It’s then that your sin haunts you and presses in
on the reality of who you are. Without the goodness of God,
we’re a helpless lot. With Him we’re new creations.
The more we remind ourselves of that, the more thankful we are
for His love, His friendship and His unrelenting forgiveness.
Why do we compulsively seek mind and mood -altering substances and behaviors (ways to temporarily forget)? Because we cannot stand the fractures sin caused! Even our bodies remember. Massage therapists ( many of my friends) tell stories of clients who crumble on the table when certain malfunctioning physiologies are remedied. Unknot that tight shoulder and you remember the guilt that put it there. All our cells have the capacity to store emotional and other data. It is now suspected that even the water in our bodies (see Gerald Pollack’s Tedx talks on You Tube about structured water) acts not only as storage batteries (for infrared energy from the sun as well as body heat) but also as information storage, too; as well as being able to transmit that info (at the speed of light, no less!). The nephesh is a very interesting place!
The memories go nowhere, that is clear, but we can deliberately choose to interact with them or not. However, if we don’t make those choices, they are still going to be interacting with us! David, as a military man, surely knew that the best place to keep your enemies (bad memories) as well as your friends (good memories) in front of you, where they can be dealt with in real space and time. Incidentally, that present is also the only place that we can get the help we need to resolve all that baggage, for it is the only place we can find the great Resolver. If it is just you and the massage therapist, however, I think chances are high that you will be meeting again in that same place, same time, next week.
This reminds me of Asa, the good king of Judah. Even though he did very many “right” things, he stumbled in his latter years and became dieseased in his feet and it killed him. Why the feet? God wanted to kill Eli’s sons and did so when they went to battle but God doesn’t need a battle to kill someone if He chooses to do that. But Asa “stubbed” his toe and the end of it was death because he refused to recognise it. We’ve so much to learn about disease, it’s not just about the disease and what “caused” it, but the disease in and of itself points toward the issue at hand. If we find ourselves with a propensity toward heart disease, maybe it isn’t about diet but rather the anger we hold against another, just as Asa was diseased in his feet according to where he walked. But the result of sin is death. What is the end of righteousness but life. In lieu of these things, what is the wisdom of God we need to learn and walk in? Believing in (walking according to) the Messiah is not the end all, but rather the beginning, (pey) but it’s that beginning and the endurance of holding to Him that will bring us too completion. As Paul said, no ear has heard”…
About disease (not only disease though)…..I have had thoughts along those lines. When I did have thoughts regarding what happened to people I know, the thoughts really related to the verse ‘I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.’ It was weird to me when I first had this thought regarding another person (not the one I am discussing here). I have not openly discussed this with anyone except my children because I have no ‘proof’ and even with them, I haven’t mentioned everything on the subject and I might not have thought of the connection until a long time later. Does the verse also refer to believers when they are cursed by others? Here is an example: I was unfairly treated at work because I had to cancel work for Sukkot. I made up all the work. (Another employee missed the same amount of work with a flimsy excuse but wasn’t harassed.) I was clearly being targeted. I let it go but I lost thousands of dollars because of the loss of income for years after that. I had a dream that the boss had a heart attack and died. When I woke up in the morning, I told my children about the the dream and I remember thinking, ‘I hope I don’t hear that he’s had a heart attack.’ Not sure about the time frame now but when I heard that he was in the hospital, they said he was very close to having one but went in for treatment in time. He had been having chest pains.
We are living in a dangerous time health wise because of the poisoning that has been going on for a good 70 years now so I surely wouldn’t think that every physical condition could be related spiritually like this and again, I can only wonder about the above experience and some of the other ones (one that was very, very close to me and one that didn’t affect the person’s health.). Very weird coincidences?
I think we have to be very careful. We are warned that we are either a “savor of life unto life or of death unto death”. My understanding is that incense was burned before the processions of condemned captives going to their deaths as sacrifices. When people smelled the incense, they knew a sacrifice was going to be the case. We are called to be “kings and priests”: those who are responsible for others. Curses and blessings are real, and we are participants in them. The world is either a better or a worse place because we are in it. Our choices open and close doors for ourselves as well as for others. It’s not all about me. Imagine that!
But life won’t always be like this, right? Not always about remembering guilt and mistakes and regrets? Revelation 21:4–“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
Just a question: Does this verse require when God does the wiping away that it entails us forgetting the sources of our tears, the reality of death, the source of past sorrow and pain? I have read it otherwise in the past, but now I question the implication.
Recently I heard someone relate that a friend thought YHVH (i.e.God, big ‘G’)was punishing him. He thought this because there were so many difficult issues he was dealing with in his life presently. The volume, intensity and overwhelming nature of these issues have taken away his control of life! Whatever his understanding of his god, I think his paradigm neglected to observe what Skip points out here, that “I need to know what I am really like without Him.” It seems many count on knowing ‘about’ god, or so they think, as enough to secure all the good and happy times we often think we, as humans, deserve for some reason. Never mind the difficulties he is facing come as the direct consequences of particular decisions that he made that may or may not have been in accordance with any real worship of YHVH. I am guilty in this regard in so many ways. Remembering is too painful, too pointed. Remembering uncovers causes of chaos in my life I purposefully expend energy to forget and cover with time and avoidance. Would that I allow David’s example to reflect on my life. Maybe then inklings of being punished will properly be replaced with worship of a strong controller (el) that encases me in his chesed constantly as one whose deeds surely demonstrate unquestionably that he extends his love to me.
There is a remembering that can be in a worshipful way. An acknowledging truth way, that is creative and redemptive; healing and humble. So too there is the fallen imitation that has nothing to do with those aspects. The imitation is truly picking at a wound without our Creators’ ultimate purposes in mind or trust of His acceptance in spite of our weakness. I understand the former is regenerative and is to maintain our gratefulness and humbleness before Him so as to continue our heart toward the blessing of being able to walk in reality and not deny who we were and could be again. Our sin /failures + faith makes for a reaction for a different outcome in its remembrance, making us aware of present, future and past and allowing us to walk in each of them unified. The catalyst fact of our past transgression stays the same but changes our future around it by faith … Perhaps we need to trust in the worshipful way of remembering and allow the transformation where the tears and regrets are milestones on our journeys to Light from darkness. Reframing in this way is not denying the truth of ourselves but acknowledging truth and truth sets us free to worship. How else can we come before Him when we have hurt others irrepairably by our distortion of what it is to be human? The goal is to be free to worship in spirit and truth & draw others to healing. Praise Him for the way forward presently and the desire from the hauntings of our pasts to become more appreciative and careful in thought word and deed. He who has transgressed the most and is forgiven much loves much. So in the end of it all, our wondrous Giver makes the last first when we allow ourselves to accept that. Don’t oppose that embrace, for it is such a wonder. Love to all. FJ
I just love that, F.J.