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1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul;
2 in you I trust O my God,
Do not let me be put to shame;
not let my enemies, triumph over me.
3 No-one whose hope is in you
be put to shame;
but they will be put to shame.
who are treacherous without excuse
4 Show me your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
5 Guide me in your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God of my Saviour;
and my hope all day long.
6 Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love,
for they have been from of old.
7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me,
for you are good O Lord!
8 Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinners in his way.
9 He guides the humble in what is right,
and teaches them his way.
10 All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful,
for those who keep the demands of his covenant.
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11 For your name’s sake, O Lord,
forgive my iniquity, thou it is great.
12 Who then is the man that fear the Lord?
He will instruct him in the way that the wat choose for him.
13 He will spend his days in prosperity,
and his descendants will inherit the land.
14 the Lord confides in those is for those who fear him,
he makes his covenant known to them.
15 My eyes are ever on the Lord,
for he will release my feet from the snare.
16 Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
17 Relieve the troubles of my heart,
have multiplied.
Free me from my distress.
18 Look upon my affliction and my distress,
and take away all my sins.
19 See how my enemies have increased,
and how fiercely they hate me.
20 Guard my life, and deliver me;
do not let me be put to shame,
for I take refuge in you.
21 May integrity and uprightness protect me,
because my hope is in you.
22 Redeem Israel, O God,
out of all its troubles!
(NIV)
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Psalm 25 is a psalm of David. It is the second acrostic psalm (a psalm where the first letter of each verse follows the order of the 22 letter Hebrew alphabet)
The Psalmist David is deeply troubled by the attacks from his enemies and his troubled conscience, so he turns to God for help and guidance.
The acrostic form makes it difficult to interpretate, the psalm is in the same form as Psalm 34 suggesting that the same author wrote them. The thought is that this psalm might have been Psalm 34 with some verses missing.
It is also strange that in verses 7 and 11 David mentions his sins, because rarely do the palmist confess their sins in their psalms.
David emphasizes his need for deliverance from his enemies and for his forgiveness from God.
He grapples with the heavy issue of life, and he feels he must trust God in the face of his troubles and troublemakers. David shows in his psalm that God, is a God of individuals not a God of collective groups. Salvation comes to us as individual not a collective group of people.
Our faith or trust in God will not go unnoticed. Sometimes we may think God is not going to answer our prayer, but we need to remember it takes time for God to set things in motion. Think of scene on television or on film set, and the time it has taken for actors and artist to have create that scene.
God never changes and we must remember that. David is reminding us of God’s lovingkindness in the past. The paths we travel may be long and difficult, but we must remember the Lord is mercy and truth. We travel those same steps as David and prophets of old and fear the Lord as they did.
We may be looking toward heaven, and still be facing problems here on the earth. If we start looking at the circumstances around us, it is enough to depress a person.
David is connecting the sin he has committed with the affliction and pain he has now. Some kinds of illness is brought on by sin, but not all.
David was not only concerned for himself, but for the whole nation of Israel, which participated in trouble through this unnatural rebellion of his son, and many of his subjects.
He now is asking for forgiveness and redemption for his colleagues.
I hear of many having problems at work with people being angry or short tempered. Our faith asks us to try and calm arguments down if we can. To be the peacemaker in situations. to calm these people and places down? so that they can talk together rather than shout out their complaints.
I think of that hymn where we are asked to ‘Put peace into each other’s hands’.
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