Psalm 39
September 28, 2025
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Everyone in this room, especially me, is a hypocrite.
Though we claim to make it our main end, we do not love you with our whole heart, and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We have transgressed your law, failed, and brought reproach upon your name and glory.
Who are we to take your name for ourselves and continue to call ourselves your children?
But like any loving Father, you send discipline to us in various ways to correct us in our sin. Indeed, if we do not receive this discipline, Hebrews says, we are not truly your children.
But Lord your discipline, though good and wise, is often painful to bear. Like the cuts of a surgeon or the burning cauterization of a wound, we endure through gritted teeth these additional pains in order to be healed.
So, LORD, we start by asking that you remind us that this painful discipline, like the one David experienced here, is for our good, that we might share your holiness.
That these cuts and wounds are not from a sadistic criminal on the street, harming us for their own pleasure, but are the painful stitches of a heavenly physician who desires to stop the bleeding of sin.
And, LORD, as much as it might seem like the godlier thing to do to simply bear the punishment with our mouths closed, like David, our hearts will grow hot with bitter anger against you and our situation if we keep silent.
Instruct us, like patients in a dental office, that it’s OK to raise our hands and cry out to you when something that’s supposed to bring healing, hurts.
Indeed, Job vented his whole heart to you in his complaining and you commend him in the end saying, “Job has spoken rightly about me, unlike his ‘holier-than-thou’ friends.”
So God, with David, we pray your discipline would be short with us, for who can endure the hostility of your hand?
Teach us what you want to teach us — That this life is breath.
That we are shadows just a single cloud away from disappearing.
That all the wealth we might aim to accumulate will be lost when our life rapidly evaporates.
Ingrain these truths into us, LORD, that we might not have to endure your disciplining hand for long.
LORD, we know how stubborn and slow and sinful our hearts and minds are, but we know how powerful and effective you are, so deliver these truths into our hearts.
For we are spent by the pains and agony of this world. We are exhausted by the moths consuming what is dear to us and the corrosion devaluing our treasures.
We know this discipline is good, LORD, but it is painful.
So, hear our prayer, O LORD, and give ear to our cry; hold not your peace at our tears at your discipline!
We are sojourners in this world, foreigners and aliens just passing through. In your presence is our true home.
But LORD let us not live this vain, fleeting life in agony. Let us take joy in your creation, let us rejoice in you and your goodness.
So we ask, LORD, in fear and trembling, that you would remove your disciplining hand that we, as your dearly loved children, might smile again as we walk with you, our good and gracious Father.
We pray this prayer, LORD, in the name of our elder brother, Jesus Christ.
And all God’s people said: Amen.