March 27
Reading: Psalm 143
A Psalm of David.
1 Hear my prayer, O LORD;
give ear to my pleas for mercy!
In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!
2 Enter not into judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.
3 For the enemy has pursued my soul;
he has crushed my life to the ground;
he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead.
4 Therefore my spirit faints within me;
my heart within me is appalled.
5 I remember the days of old;
I meditate on all that you have done;
I ponder the work of your hands.
6 I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.
Selah
7 Answer me quickly, O LORD!
My spirit fails!
Hide not your face from me,
lest I be like those who go down to the pit.
8 Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,
for in you I trust.
Make me know the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.
9 Deliver me from my enemies, O LORD!
I have fled to you for refuge.
10 Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God!
Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!
11 For your name’s sake, O LORD,
preserve my life!
In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble!
12 And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies,
and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul,
for I am your servant.
Psalm 143 is a psalm of David and the last of the seven penitential psalms: Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143. I find these psalms so helpful when needing to confess sin and get right with God. It is an amazing thing to experience God’s love and forgiveness and the penitential psalms are designed to help us in this.
Each of them leads us along a pathway into God’s forgiveness in a different way. Psalm 143 begins with David’s cry to God who is faithful and righteous. His plea is for mercy. Verse 2 is an essential thought for the repentant soul. It communicates two ideas.
- A prayer for God to relent from His righteous judgment. This is a request for mercy.
- The rationale for the request: No living person is righteous before God.
These two thoughts are the beginning of the only path to forgiveness.
In verses 3-4 we get a taste of how David feels because of his sin and the troubles from other people that it has brought. Others have only added to his misery. This is commonplace for the sinner. Then he considers who God is and how much he longs for the Lord. When in sin, God feels distant. The “selah” helps us to ponder this thought.
We continue to read of this longing in verses 7-9. It is a longing to see God’s face, to have fellowship with Him, to hear from God, to receive His guidance. Of course, when we are sinning, we are not guided by God. When we pray, the Lord is interested in talking about only this: our sin and the need to repent. When we are unrepentant and try to think about God, it is difficult to think about anything other than our sin.
In verses 10-12 David speaks of his desire to experience the ongoing instruction and guidance of the Lord. We are always dependent upon the Lord to keep us from temptation and sin. I think of that request in the Lord’s Prayer, “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:13)