For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Psalm 32:3-4
What was it like for David during the long months when he covered up and tried to move on from his sins? Don’t think for a moment that everything was hunky-dory in the palace. It was not. “My bones wasted away through my groaning all day long” (32:3).
David had money, he had privilege, and he had the wife that he wanted. But he lived every day with a nagging groan in his spirit. Even when he savored great pleasure, the groan was still there. His “strength was dried up” (32:4). He lost his zest for life. The blessing of God on his life had departed, and all that was left was a groan.
David’s misery was a sure sign that he really was the Lord’s. A person who has never known or really loved the Lord will not miss him when he is gone. But if you are the Lord’s, you can never really be happy when you are hiding from him. That was David’s experience, and if you are the Lord’s, it will be yours when you cover up and move on as well.
David was miserable, but there was no confession of sin yet. Months had passed, and in all that time there had not been a flicker of repentance in his soul: “I kept silent” (32:3).
It is easy for us to assume that sin leads to repentance, but genuine repentance is always a miracle of God’s grace. If it were not for the grace of God, sin would lead us to live at a distance from God forever.
Have you experienced the misery that comes from living apart from God? When?
