Run to Him Who Hurts You

"Lord, all my desire is before You;
    And my sighing is not hidden from You."
Psa 38:9

How precious to know that the Lord sees and the Lord cares--especially when we are spending our days in sighing!

But some will argue: this comfort is not for me! If you only knew how I had sinned against Him, and how much of this mess was my own making!

Well, it is true that David's trouble was, humanly speaking, those who had "raised themselves up against him" (v16) and were opposed to him precisely because he was "following what is good" (v20).

But on his knees before God, that wasn't how David saw it. Whatever other people were doing to him in his situation, David was much more concerned with what God was doing. He knew that God "works all things according to the counsel of His own will" (Eph 1:11) and that God "upholds all things by the word of His power" (Heb 1:3). So, whatever Saul, or the Philistines, or the Amalekites, or Absalom, or Shimei, or anyone else were doing to him, David knew that it was being done by the plan and action of God as well.

"Your wrath... Your displeasure... Your arrows... Your hand..." (v1-2) and so on. You wouldn't even know that there were other humans involved until v11!

It is not faith to think that others are doing this while God sits idly by. It is faith to know that God is right there in the midst, ordaining whatever happens, and overruling everyone else's purposes in it with His own. By itself, that doesn't make things easier, but it does make us honest about them. We know that in at least some sense, it is God who hurts us.

For, now, even worse, David's greatest burden was not some earthly circumstance that his enemies had brought about. It was his own iniquity, his own sin, that he himself had committed.

"There is no... health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a burden, they are too heavy for me." (v4)

What a great mercy of God to us--David saw himself as he really is: such a great sinner (even when compared to others he "follows good") that he deserves far worse from the hand of God than he has received.

David knows what he deserves from God for his sin, but he also knows what God is like toward sinners. God sees. God cares. God may be hurting him, but for his good rather than for his harm. "Lord, all my desire is before You; And my sighing is nothidden from you."

David knew that God, who was hurting David just now, is also God who would help and heal him. David knew that, although his sin was so great, God's grace is greater, and that God was doing this for good.

And, dear reader, if you come to God through Christ, this is for you too. I don't need to know how great is your sin to say that. I am familiar with Christ, who is greater. I don't need to know how much of your mess is your own making. I see, in Psalm 38, the God who sees and cares and helps and heals those whose iniquity is over their heads, a burden that they could never lift.

So, silence your "but I"
I will always answer "but Christ"

Only come to Him in Christ. There is none of this without Him.