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Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty! When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. (Selah) Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. (Selah) Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time, that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment. For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory. (Selah) Psalm 32:1-7 (NLT)

To many Christians, the message of the Old Testament is that sin equals judgement and the wrath of God. And the New Testament then equals grace and forgiveness of sins. How do you view the God of the Old Testament? He is the same God who gave up His only Son, Jesus, so that we could be fully redeemed and forgiven.

Yet, we as Christians often live as though this were not true. We ruminate on the things we’ve done wrong, quarrel with others because we know better than them. Some days, weeks, and even seasons, whether we always realize it or not, we seem to marinate in our own sinfulness.

The psalmist did this too. He talks about how his body wasted away, his strength was sapped, and God’s hand was heavy on him when he held his sin too closely to his heart and refused to confess it. That’s because we are not meant to do this life alone.

The Lord is a secret hiding place for us. Not a place to wile away from the world and to avoid and put off and ignore the sin within us. No, God is the place where we can bring everything within us, knowing that He is our Shelter, our Protection, our Covering, and He holds the wisdom that we need for this life.

As we come to God more and more with all the sinful, broken and hurting places within us, the Lord will surround us with songs of deliverance. Not only our own deliverance, but that of believers around us that have also been set free through the forgiveness, grace, and compassion of God. God will never move in one life without impacting lives all around. Just like the expanding riffles, after dropping a stone into the water.

That means that there is a role for the Christian community here as well. The forgiven psalmist ends this poem by calling the community to rejoice. For one sinner has found forgiveness! This is a counter-cultural notion in a culture that celebrates not forgiveness, but rather Schadenfreude. That is, enjoying the punishment of others. When someone is forgiven, we often label them as “having gotten away” with something. But this psalm reminds us that we have a role to play when someone is forgiven. We are to take joy in the new life of the one who was pardoned, and, in this way, we welcome back a fellow believer who had been lost.

Don’t be like the horse or mule of verse 9 which must be controlled by bit and bridle. When we bring ourselves willingly before God, He instructs us and teaches us and slowly transforms and molds us more and more into His own image-bearers. And what greater joy in the world is there than that?!

In three locations in Psalm 32 there is the word “Selah.” It means to pause or reflect on what has just come before it. Selah positions us to hear God’s voice and to be in His presence. It is found after verses 4, 5, and 7. Often in times of pausing, God gives us a revelation that transforms something inside of us, bringing us closer to Him. I encourage you today, to read back through Psalm 32 and to pause after these verses and to reflect on their meaning for you in your own life and the life of your Christian community.