In the Lord I Take Refuge: 31 Days in the PsalmsSample

It is one thing to endure pain. It is another thing to endure pain that you know has come from your own sin.

David writes this psalm out of the anguish of his heart. He is completely overwhelmed with life, “utterly bowed down and prostrate” (v. 6). But his pain is doubled by the knowledge that this pain is “because of my sin” (v. 3), “because of my foolishness” (v. 5). As a result, he is at wit’s end, enduring physical distress (v. 3), emotional pain (v. 8), and relational dysfunction (v. 11).

Every child of God knows something of this pain—to know that various trials in life arise from our own foolishness. This is a double pain, for we are not innocent victims of someone else’s folly; it is our own folly. Does God have an answer for this? Is this an anguish that goes beyond the resources of the grace of God? Can true believers sin their way out of the mercy of God?

May it never be. The apostle Paul insists with reassuring clarity that where sin piles up, grace piles up even higher. God’s answer for those who squander his grace through folly is more grace. In Jesus, this unending fountain of inexhaustible grace has been secured. In perfect justice and righteousness, God can treat believers not in accord with what they deserve on their own. Praise God.