Psalms 38:1-16: a reflection

1LORD, don’t rebuke me in your wrath, neither chasten me in your hot displeasure. 2For your arrows have pierced me, your hand presses hard on me. 3There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation, neither is there any health in my bones because of my sin. 4For my iniquities have gone over my head. As a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. 5My wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolishness. 6I am in pain and bowed down greatly. I go mourning all day long. 7For my waist is filled with burning. There is no soundness in my flesh. 8I am faint and severely bruised. I have groaned by reason of the anguish of my heart. 9Lord, all my desire is before you. My groaning is not hidden from you. 10My heart throbs. My strength fails me. As for the light of my eyes, it has also left me. 11My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my plague. My kinsmen stand far away. 12They also who seek after my life lay snares. Those who seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and meditate deceits all day long. 13But I, as a deaf man, don’t hear. I am as a mute man who doesn’t open his mouth. 14Yes, I am as a man who doesn’t hear, in whose mouth are no reproofs. 15For I hope in you, LORD. You will answer, Lord my God. 16For I said, “Don’t let them gloat over me, or exalt themselves over me when my foot slips.”

This is the prayer of someone crushed under the weight of sin and suffering. The psalmist feels God's displeasure like arrows, describes wounds and sickness in his body, and confesses that his own foolishness has brought much of it on. His guilt has gone over his head like a burden too heavy to carry. He hides nothing, laying the full weight of his condition before God.

The loneliness makes it worse. His friends and companions stand far off from his affliction, and those who wish him harm keep scheming. He has become like a deaf and mute man, no longer even defending himself, simply enduring. And yet, in the middle of all this, comes the turn that holds the psalm together: for in you, Lord, I hope; you will answer, Lord my God.

When you are weighed down by your own failures and feel that even friends have drawn back, this psalm gives you honest words. You do not have to minimize your sin or pretend the pain away. Confess it fully, as the psalmist does, and then do what he does: place your hope in the Lord who hears. The weight is real, and so is the God who answers. Bring the whole burden to him, and wait for his reply.

Lord, when the weight of my own failures presses down and even friends seem far away, give me the honesty of this psalm. Let me confess my sin fully without excuse, and then place my hope in you, for you will answer. Lift the burden I cannot carry, and do not stay far from me. In you, Lord my God, I put my hope. Amen.