In my Bible memory system this morning I reviewed verses I've had memorized for almost 20 years. It struck me that here is an example of how sickness, indeed all suffering, is meant by God to "keep us from becoming conceited" as Paul says about the purpose of his physical disability. Here are the verses from Psalm 25:16-18: "Turn to me and be gracious to me for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have multiplied, free me from my anguish. Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins."
Clearly we have here a suffering saint; a believer who is beset by trouble. As is true for all affliction, of ever variety, he feels isolated, lonely, bereft of companionship. The external affliction has created turmoil in his heart. His heart is weighed down with anxiety. He is on the edge of despair. He is in emotional anguish. He is hemmed in and trapped and sees no way out. So he calls out to God and asks that the Lord himself would intervene and graciously help him and free him from his emotional anguish and look upon, that is, take note of and pay attention to his affliction and his distress.
Please do not miss that word "gracious". He knows that he does not deserve God's help. He has no grounds for demanding that God help him. He knows he is a sinner and sinners do not have a right to be free from suffering. God is not obligated by us to do anything good for us. Our pleas for help must always come from hearts that know we deserve nothing. We always pray like the tax collector in the temple to whom Jesus refers in his little story in Luke 18:9-14. Jesus describes his prayer in this way: "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God have mercy on me a sinner.'" This is how the psalmist prays and this also is how every suffering Christian must also pray. The ground of our petitions is always God's delight to be kind to miserable sinners like us. We ask him to deal with us not according to our sins but according to his grace and mercy. Don't give us what we deserve but be kind to us because you are a God of grace.
The phrase that really caught my attention is that last clause: "take away all my sins." While it is possible that all of the psalmist's distress is due to his sins; I don't think the language points in that direction. Especially when you look at the first verse of the psalm and the verses immediately following these the psalmist is being persecuted by his enemies. He is suffering at the hands of others. His affliction is caused by the mistreatment of other humans. However, and this is what is striking, the experience of affliction has caused him to see his sins in a deeper way and to desire deliverance from his sins. In fact in a couple of earlier verses he asked the Lord, "Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways." "For the sake of your name, O Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great."
Thus one of God's chief purposes in all our sufferings is that we would see and feel our own sinfulness in deeper ways and recognize that our greatest need is to be forgiven. Suffering is designed by God to keep us from becoming conceited because through the weakness which affliction produces we are reminded of our many sins and then of how gracious God has been to forgive us our sins by the giving of his Son to die for them. Suffering produces humility by drawing out attention to our sins and to God's grace in forgiving them through Chrsit.
I mentioned this before but this has been my experience in this affliction. I regularly think about and feel how much I have failed to love God and to love others. My selfishness and greed and self-indulgence and impurity looms large in my sight. I think part of the reason is because I feel so vulnerable and weak. I think when I am strong and active that I am simply too preoccupied with what I am doing to recognize what I have failed to do. I think also I am so dependent on other people right now that their kindness towards me reminds me of how unkind I have been to others.
So I find here a prayer that I can pray and I think that all who suffer can pray: "Turn to me and be gracious to me for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have multiplied, free me from my anguish. Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins."
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