Rejoicing even in the bone-breaking …

Traveling home through four airports this morning, I’ve been enjoying Spurgeon’s Encyclopedia of Sermons. Not in any sort of systematic, academic way, mind you … but just topically. I’m reading on things that are of particular interest to me at this time in my life.

This morning I read Pastor Spurgeon’s exposition of Psalm 51 because I’ve been thinking a lot about repentance lately.

He writes:

“Psalm 51:8. Make me to hear joy and gladness …

How late in the Psalm that prayer comes! He writes seven verses before he dares to pray for joy and gladness; and those seven verses are all either confessions of sin or petitions for deliverance from sin; and, my sinful friend, you must not first seek to get rid of your sorrow; but, rather, be thankful for your sorrow for sin, and pray that you may never lose that sorrow until you lose the sin that causes it.

Psalm 51:8. That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

If God’s children fall into sin, the Lord does not wink at their sin, but He chastises them so severely that He sometimes even breaks their bones; but God’s pardoning mercy can set those bones, and make each broken and mended bone to become a mouth for holy song: “that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.”

Never pleasant this bone breaking aspect of repentance, eh? But I am grateful for it.

Grace to you on this blessed Lord’s Day!
It’s Sunday! The best day of the week.

With love,
Tara B.