IN YOU, LORD MY GOD, I PUT MY TRUST
Psalm 25
“Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.”
From the confident declaration of trust, to the desire for guidance and instruction, the Psalmist revels in the goodness of God. But when he considers himself, and his less than worthy life, you can sense his hesitation. He calls on God’s mercy and love, he asks for his indiscretions to be overlooked and forgotten, but you feel that he could not move on. He turns to the God who is upright and good to teach him and guide him, and at this point he begins to understand what is needed.
“He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way”. In the context of sin, trust is not the most important approach. We must be humble, acknowledge our wrong, and seek forgiveness. The focus is not on God, but on ourselves. “I trust you”, “you are merciful and loving”, even, “my hope is in you” is not quite what is needed.
When it comes to sin, what God desires of us is a humble “forgive my iniquity”. Yes, you do so because you trust him, and you do so because he is merciful and loving, and you do so because there is no one else you can turn to—he is your only hope—but ultimately, most importantly, it must be that you do so because you were wrong and you acknowledge it and humbly throw yourself at his mercy.
We all want to dwell on the victory that God brings; we want to be vindicated and our hopes fulfilled. But the ways of God are righteous and we are sinful, weak and full of blemishes. At some point we need to be humble enough to acknowledge that we do not deserve to be in God’s good books; we do not deserve to “ascend the mountain of the Lord”. It is when we humbly come to him and acknowledge our sin and seek his forgiveness and help that we enter the place where our taste of God is “loving and faithful” (v10).
“For the sake of your name, Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great.”