Psalm 38: It's My Brain's Fault

By Sean Theunissen

Psalm 38 (NIV)

'My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.' Ps 38:4

This lament is quite brutal in its description and incredibly honest. It seems that it was used to be sung during the memorial offering where people would come to consecrate themselves before God.

Throughout these psalms one thing that has stood out above the rest is David's sensitivity of spirit. I mean that in a good way, not that he took things the wrong way or couldn't handle constructive criticism, but rather that he hated sin and was so aware of it in his life. He was aware of how it spread and how it had the capability of numbing the soul to its deadliness. He was unable to tolerate it.

Here is an incredible example of it.

'My wounds fester and are loathsome
because of my sinful folly.
I am bowed down and brought very low;
all day long I go about mourning.'

Being honest I often find that when I'm guilty before God, my gut reaction is to scrape around for some excuse, or find something else or someone else to take at least some of the blame.

My son Tom is a good example of this. One day when Rachel picked him up from school his teacher told her that Tom had bitten someone that day. Now don't worry it wasn't vampire style angry biting, it was more puppy dog messing around biting. Nevertheless he shouldn't have done it.

Amazingly when we sat him down to talk to him about it to try and understand what the reason was for doing it, he blamed his brain. Apparently he didn't want to do it but as his brain told him to do it!

David is such a mentor in loving his Father in heaven and prizing that relationship above all things including pride that often stops us from even confessing the sin that He's already seen.

Lord, I pray you'd help me to be more open with You, not to put sin to one side as if it doesn't really matter. Lord I want to hate all sin the way you do. Thank you for the blood of Jesus that takes it so far away from me and allows me to start all over again.