Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD.
Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!
Psalm 32:10-11
I was meditating on this psalm and these verses especially through the day, which was especially challenging because i was utterly exhausted after an eventful past four days which left me severely starved of sleep.
In the throes of my sleep deprivation, my soul warmed to the truths in this piece of Scripture. The verses i’ve chosen to quote come right at the end of the psalm and only after King David had written about his deep longing for the time when a man (or a woman) could stand before the Most High God righteous, without fear of His wrath against our heinous sinfulness. The rest of the psalm denotes his struggle with sin, his repentance and confession before his God and an exhortation to seek the LORD’s face and His abundant mercy and forgiveness while there is time to do so. It is only in this context that verses 10-11 should be understood.
The call to rejoice in God – to find ALL our joy in Him – is remarkable because it comes in the context of David’s great struggle with his sinfulness. His acute awareness of it and struggle produces a holy longing for purity and blamelessness – holiness. God’s incredible mercy and amazing love is magnified as David reveals how His desire is for us to be thus holy, as He is, and He provides the means and the grace for us to be like Him.
All this, in spite of our constant childish rebellion against Him.
Who is like Him?
Is there any One but Him?
Truly, the greatest joy, to which all other joys are pale shadows, can only be found in a perfect longing to be like Him and a conscious abiding in Him and His presence.
Do our hearts not cry out in the stillness for something to fill this hollowness within?
Do we not long to give ourselves so utterly to something, someone and for that same thing or person to be so utterly given to us?
Do we not long to be free, to be clean of all that besets and burdens our hearts, our souls, our minds?
Be glad in Him and rejoice. Shout for joy because of Him.
