“Count yourself lucky— God holds nothing against you and you’re holding nothing back from him. When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans. The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up.
Then I let it all out; I said, ‘I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.’ Suddenly the pressure was gone— my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared.” Psalm 32:2-5 (MSG)
Maybe you don’t consider yourself an angry person, but you do acknowledge occasional feelings of fear, guilt, betrayal, hopelessness, failure, insecurity, anxiety, grief, or resentment. When not dealt with, these, and other emotions like them, can lead to anger, depression, and physical manifestations.
Any one of these feelings, when kept inside, will cause pressure that never lets up–just as King David described in the passage above. Just imagine the feelings that plagued King David as he was hunted down by King Saul. David must have understood anger all too well. As I study the Psalms, I hope to find how he dealt with these feelings.
How do we know what feelings are holding us back? Pulling us down? Potentially setting us up to be angry and depressed?
I go back to Psalm 139. God knows our hearts and thoughts before we do. Let’s continue to pray as David did: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
And as the Holy Spirit brings things to our minds, let’s do as David did. Let it out. Say, “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.” And trust that God will do for us as He did for David: “the pressure was gone— my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared.”
Could very well take more than one application. Wash, rinse, repeat. Until clean.
Until next time … God bless!
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