During 2025, Peachtree Church is focusing on the Book of Psalms with a series called Dwell, through which we seek to deepen our conversation with God and open ourselves to hearing his response. The practice of praying three times each day will unite the voices of our hearts and souls as we seek the day when we will see the full realization of the Kingdom of God, promised in Revelation 21:3: “…Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
We will email devotionals twice weekly with Monday’s providing an overview of the Psalm as a whole, and Wednesday’s focused on that week’s Daily Dwell.
For day and night
your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer.Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess
my transgressions to the Lord.”
And you forgave
the guilt of my sin.Therefore let all the faithful pray to you
while you may be found;
surely the rising of the mighty waters
will not reach them.
You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
Psalm 32:4-8
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
Devotional
This Psalm is one that has always been very dear to me; partly as I have a deep love for confessional prayers in Scripture, but even more so since the first sermon I ever preached where I liked what I said was from Psalm 32. While it has been more than twenty years since I wrote and preached on this passage the first time, I can still remember many of the words and images from that sermon. What stands out the most to me is the manner in which this Psalm provides a comparison between what our life is like when we are unrepentant and when we follow the Lord’s call to confess before Him.
From a theological perspective, I tend to reject the idea that God seeks to punish us directly when we are unwilling to come before him in confession (which might be why we are starting our passage for the week in verse four rather than verse three). But something happens within us when we make the decision not to repent. It is not so much that the Lord’s hand presses down upon us in punishment for our sin, as that we allow ourselves to be eaten alive with the steady sense that there is something wrong—something that we know we need to admit and to offer up to our Creator.
One of the more difficult pieces of life is that we can know that we have done something (and often know just what it is that we have done), yet out of our own pride, our own unwillingness to admit that we are worthy of judgment, we refuse to come clean. I am reminded of the words of Proverbs 28:1: “The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.” In these moments, we simply flee, and in so doing, our conscience, our sense of dis-ease, our feeling of guilt weighs down upon us as heavily as if God Himself had pressed down His hand upon our shoulders.
But something amazing happens when we are willing to turn our eyes toward God’s grace, to come before Him with a repentant heart, and simply to say, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” The change is instantaneous. As we are willing to offer a truthful admission of our sin to God, we are able to feel His presence in our lives. We are able to understand His desire that He serve as our refuge, and that He will protect us from all that seeks to encroach upon our lives.
I see in these words the reminder that we ourselves are our own greatest enemy. It is in our inability to be honest with God that we push Him away. It is in our own reluctance to offer the vulnerable truth to our Creator that we prevent ourselves from being willing to accept the grace that He offers to each of us.
For Reflection
- When in your life has there been a time when you have not been willing to be open with God?
- What changed during that time after your heart shifted? If you still have not done so, what is holding you back?
Prayer
Gracious Lord, you call us to confession, not because you do not already know where sin lies in our hearts and minds, but because you desire that we would live in an open, honest, and vulnerable relationship with you. Help us to give up our pride and to admit to you where we have missed the mark. In Jesus’ name we pray; amen.
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Devotionals