Psalm 25:1-9
The Nature of God's Mercy

To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.

O my God, in you I trust;
    do not let me be put to shame;
    do not let my enemies exult over me.
Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
    let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

Make me to know your ways, O LORD;
    teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
    for you are the God of my salvation;
    for you I wait all day long.

Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD,
    and of your steadfast love,
    for they have been from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
    according to your steadfast love remember me,
    for your goodness' sake, O LORD!

Good and upright is the LORD;
    therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
    and teaches the humble his way.

New Revised Standard Version

Do you get a sense of the pain the psalmist carried to God in this prayer psalm? Almost immediately he starts into his cry for help -- God is his best hope, and maybe his only hope, to be rescued from his enemies.

We also read the fight between his knowledge and his emotions in this passage. He knows that God has been faithful and will be faithful again, but his knowledge is not enough to calm his fears. God has been faithful before, but he cries out for God to be faithful again. All of us know that feeling, and all of us have gone to God as the father expressed to Jesus in Mark 9:24, "I do believe; help my unbelief."

But then there's more. We have to get down to verse seven to see the psalmist finally offer up the guilt that has been eating away at him. We know that feeling, too. We have sinned, we have disappointed and defied God, and we know how we feel when others have disappointed us. We want God to help us, and we might believe that God would help us if we deserved it, but we know we do not. We know destruction is what we deserve, and we see that destruction coming at us.

Too many of us would have never written this psalm. We would have given in, not to the sin, but to the guilt that comes afterward. We can't understand why God would forgive us and rescue us from the mess we created, so we can't even bring ourselves to ask. We think in doing so we are being humble, for God is good, and we are not.

It doesn't work that way. Even when we are good, even when we think we might have been together enough to be acceptable to God, we were still too sinful to earn God's blessings. Not one of us can ever be good enough. We always have to cry out to God for mercy. And every time, God is faithful to heal us, to bless us, and to rescue us, and that is because God's forgiveness is greater than our sin.

That is an amazing dimension of God's love. God knows far better than we know just how sinful and undeserving we are. God knows all our shortcomings and weaknesses, and instead of rejecting us for our sin and failure, God uses our weakness to demonstrate God's endless goodness and power. God responds to those who approach in true humility, open to God, dependent on God, and accepting God's love for us. It is those people who God leads, teaches, and draws close!

God is so good!