When I kept silence
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“When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.”
Psalm 32:3 NIV
Psalm 32 expresses the relief and happiness David felt after confessing sin and receiving God’s forgiveness. As an old song says: “How blessed the one whose trespass has freely been forgiven, whose sin is wholly covered before the sight of heaven.”
David contrasts his newfound happiness with the pain and suffering he felt when he kept silence about his sin: “My bones wasted away” and “strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.” As the old song says, “...while I kept guilty silence, my strength was spent with grief, Thy hand was heavy on me, my soul found no relief.”
The psalm does not say which sin David confessed, but it may likely have been his lust for Bathsheba which led to the murder of her husband Uriah. Sin in the leadership is a serious matter because it can bring a nation to ruin. For this reason God sent Nathan the prophet to tell David a story about a wealthy shepherd who used a poor family’s only pet lamb for his dinner party. When Nathan’s story evoked David’s anger, Nathan told David, “...you are the one.”
David needed to own and confess his sin to receive God’s pardon and restore an honest relationship with God. As the old song says, “But when I owned my trespass, my sin hid not from thee, when I confessed transgression, then thou forgavest me.” When King David experienced divine forgiveness, integrity was restored in him, the palace and the nation.
Silence about sin in the leadership threatens a nation’s future. Divine love does not give up on erring people but pursues with calls for openness and accountability. Those who own and confess sin receive pardon and power to make new beginnings, lead with integrity and ensure God’s blessings upon the future.
The reverend Celia M. Hastings has a masters degree in religious education from Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. She is author of “The Wisdom Series” and “The Undertaker’s Wife.”
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: When I kept silence
