And Still Not Ashamed

David gives more insight into his words in Psalm 25 from Psalm 69.

“¹ Save me, O God!
   For the waters have come up to my neck.
² I sink in deep mire,
  Where there is no standing;
  I have come into deep waters,
  Where the floods overflow me.
³ I am weary with my crying;
  My throat is dry;
  My eyes fail while I wait for my God.

…

²⁹ But I am poor and sorrowful;
  Let Your salvation, O God, set me up on high.” – Psalm 69:1-4,29

The picture of him in the first part is of a man who is emotionally spent.  He is desperate and his throat is dry and his eyes are dry from weeping.  He is physically dehydrated from his deeply emotional distress.  It is moving to read of a king writing about how he is concerned over his condition which would affect the kingdom.  When is the last time our nation had a leader that we seriously could believe was that concerned over it?  But more importantly, when was the last time we were so deeply emotionally distressed over our own household and our own character condition?

“I am poor and sorrowful”, David is ashamed.  He was the king; he was God’s chosen; how had he come to this?  “O my God, I trust in You; let me not be ashamed; let not my enemies triumph over me. … Keep my soul, and deliver me; let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You.” (Psalm 25:2,20)  Now we can see another aspect of his plea to not be ashamed.  He wants his spirit to be restored.  He does not want to be poor and sorrowful, defeated.  He trusts in God, so he pleads to God to restore his spirit.  Do not let me be ashamed!  Do not let me be hopeless!  “I trust in You … keep my soul and deliver me … I put my trust in You.”  “Let Your salvation, O God, set me up on high.” (Psalm 69:29) 

David rightly looks to God and God alone to lift him up.  We can’t lift one another up out of the mud hole because we’re all in the same mud hole.  Only God, who is not in the mud hole or “deep mire” can lift us out of the mud hole.  All of us have mud on us and we can’t clean each other.  Only God, who has no mud can clean each of us.  A preacher once exclaimed, “You can go to God smelling like a pig!”  But the truth is, the only way to get to God is smelling like a pig and standing in the pig sty.  David cries to God for his salvation.  We should renew our cry to God, to praise Him greatly for lifting us out of that pig sty, and to protect us so that we don’t fall back in.  “Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You.”

David's faith is in God and God alone to lift him from his shame.  May our faith rest solely on God's Words.  May our trust be in Him.