Wednesday Worship - covering sin

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
    whose sin is covered.
² Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
    and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 

Psalm 32:1-2 ESV

 

Since the very beginning of time, man has attempted to cover his sin. 

 

Adam and Eve hid and made their own clothing of leaves.

David tried getting Uriah to sleep with his wife and when that didn't work had him killed.

We lie, ignore, compensate, rationalize, compartmentalize, and retaliate to cover our sins.

However, the only true way to cover sin must be carried out by God.

 

He killed an animal to cover Adam and Eve's sin and clothe them.

God sent Nathan to expose David's unconfessed, unforgiven sin and bring about repentance and sacrifice.

God sent Jesus to pay for our sin, so we can be covered, perfectly.

First, our sin must be exposed. Laid raw in all its hideousness before us. Then, we confess, repent, worship. God forgives, covers, and makes beautiful.

Just this week I got to see this in action in my own life. The other day, my husband and I had a little misunderstanding. Things have been incredibly smooth, amazing even, for an extended period of time, so maybe we were due. Anyway, so in my typical fashion, I didn't know how to respond, so I just say nothing. My thought process was something like, "Ouch. That really hurt. He's being mean right now. I'm not even going to try to wrangle with that because I will probably just start to cry. Poor me. I'm actually a good person and he's making me feel bad." Oh my goodness. Writing that out makes me sick. All those things seriously ran through my head over about a 30 minute time period. 

I couldn't get over it, and God wouldn't let me without dealing with my own sinful tendencies and wretched attitudes that were doing anything but being covered. 

Do you know God can even use secular TV to reach you? Yup. That evening we were watching a show together (me being the good wife, not bringing up the hurt, just stuffing it down in my oh-so-unhealthy way). On the show there was a couple and one of them was messing up big time, but the other one kept believing the best. She kept staying by his side because she knew that deep down, there was good there that would come out of she kept waiting and encoruaging him. 

Obviously, in good TV fashion, this guys' bad points were seriously bad, not just surface bad. 

Those walls that I built up around my sin were seriously sabotaged as I began to realize the filth of my own sin. 

Then, at bedtime I pulled out my prayer cards. Most nights I pray through one of the prayers from Power of a Praying Wife before going to sleep. Oh my. The prayer for that night  was like TNT to the walls I had built around my sin.

"Lord, help me to be a good wife. I fully realize that I don't have what it takes to be one without Your help. Take my selfishness, impatience, and irritability and turn them into kindness, long-suffering and the willingness to bear all things. Take my old emotional habits, mindsets, automatic reactions, rude assumptions, and self protectiveness [ouch, ouch, maybe different ones from that list hit each of us, but those struck deep] and make me patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. Take the hardness of my heart and break down the walls with Your battering ram of revelation. Give me a new heart and work in my Your love, peace, and joy. I am not able to rise above who I am at this moment. Only You can transform me." (from Power of a Praying Wife by Stormy Omartian)

 Amen and Amen. 

When I woke up in the morning, there lay my sin. Not buried behind a wall as I had tried to do to it, but exposed, all nasty looking, and staring me right in the face. 

God is gentle, oh so gentle (after the ripping down the walls part). He was whispering, "Let me cover it. You can't take care of this alone. And, after all, I already have taken care of it."

So I let go. I stopped hiding, stopped trying to force me emotions to just deal with it on their own. I claimed God's covering, God's forgiveness. The beautiful release and peace that comes with that moment of confession is such an indescribable thing. 

 Makes me wonder how Adam and Eve felt when God clothed them in the animal skins. I think I always pictured them still cowering in fear, in pain, in guilt. But maybe not. No, the full impact of their sin could never be erased just as each one of our sins carries lingering implications on our relationships and life outcome, but the guilt does not have to still hold us in its grip.

As God wrapped them in fur. He covered them. He fully grasped the consequence of their sin, which they could not at that point or possibly ever. In looking at that Hebrew word it is often used in a figurative sense, a covering of our body. Also, interesting is that the few other times that the word is used just this way (accusative of a person only) it involves putting on clothing or wraps that do not originally belong to that person - borrowed robes, armor, or clothing. 

 God does for us what we cannot do ourselves with coverings which would never have been ours apart from Him. 

But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. Psalm 3:3 ESV

He covers us lovingly, and then lifts our head as we find joy and worship. I could not live without God's forgiveness that is complete and final. And with that, I step into a new day with complete confidence in his love.