Honest With God: Finding Healing and Wholeness Through the PsalmsНамуна

Before I met my wife, I had dated women who held past sins over my head. I would hear words that said “I forgive you,” only to find those mistakes quickly recalled the next time there was a disagreement or difficult moment in the relationship.

After my wife and I had been married for some time, she saw my struggle to receive her forgiveness. She sat me down and said, “Babe, I’m not like the women you dated before me. When I saw I forgive you, I mean it. Have I brought your past mistakes up and hung them over your head?” I realized she hadn't done that, even though I had kept waiting for her to do so. “So, will you please trust me when I say I forgive you? If I have forgiven you, then maybe you need to forgive yourself, too.”

That day, buried under the avalanche of my own condemnation for another mistake as a husband, I remembered words I'd memorized as a child from Psalm 103: "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love" (Psalm 103:8 NIV).

“Slow to anger.” The phrase stopped me cold. While I was quick to berate myself for my failures, God was slow to anger about them. While I was building a case against my own worthiness, He was abounding in love toward me.

King David understood something about God's character that I was just beginning to grasp. He knew the difference between human love (which is often conditional, performance-based, and easily withdrawn) and divine love (which operates on entirely different principles).

"He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:10-12 NIV).

East from west. Not north from south – those have poles, endpoints where the directions meet. But east from west stretches infinitely, never converging as we move around the globe. That's how far God has removed your shame, your failures, your most embarrassing moments from His memory.

David continues with words that feel like a father's tender embrace: "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust." (Psalm 103:13-14 NIV)

God isn't surprised by your weakness. He's not shocked by your struggles. He remembers that you are dust – fragile, finite, prone to breaking. And His response to your fragility isn't frustration; it's compassion.

Take a deep breath, and let yourself be loved by Him today!