Psalm 25 - The Ugly Duckling

Your prayers don't need to be polished to be powerful.

Psalm 25 is sort of like this picture. It doesn't neatly fit into any categories. (image: DailyVerses.net)

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Psalm 25

Of David.

¹ In you, LORD my God,

I put my trust.

² I trust in you;

do not let me be put to shame,

nor let my enemies triumph over me.

³ No one who hopes in you

will ever be put to shame,

but shame will come on those

who are treacherous without cause.

⁴ Show me your ways, LORD,

teach me your paths.

⁵ Guide me in your truth and teach me,

for you are God my Savior,

and my hope is in you all day long.

⁶ Remember, LORD, your great mercy and love,

for they are from of old.

⁷ Do not remember the sins of my youth

and my rebellious ways;

according to your love remember me,

for you, LORD, are good.

⁸ Good and upright is the LORD;

therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.

⁹ He guides the humble in what is right

and teaches them his way.

¹⁰ All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful

toward those who keep the demands of his covenant.

¹¹ For the sake of your name, LORD,

forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

¹² Who, then, are those who fear the LORD?

He will instruct them in the ways they should choose.

¹³ They will spend their days in prosperity,

and their descendants will inherit the land.

¹⁴ The LORD confides in those who fear him;

he makes his covenant known to them.

¹⁵ My eyes are ever on the LORD,

for only he will release my feet from the snare.

¹⁶ Turn to me and be gracious to me,

for I am lonely and afflicted.

¹⁷ Relieve the troubles of my heart

and free me from my anguish.

¹⁸ Look on my affliction and my distress

and take away all my sins.

¹⁹ See how numerous are my enemies

and how fiercely they hate me!

²⁰ Guard my life and rescue me;

do not let me be put to shame,

for I take refuge in you.

²¹ May integrity and uprightness protect me,

because my hope, LORD, is in you.

²² Deliver Israel, O God,

from all their troubles!

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Canons of Dordt

Point 1 - God's Unconditional Election

Point 2 - Limited Atonement

Point 3 - Total Depravity

Article 6: The Saving Power of the Gospel

1. What, therefore, neither the light of nature nor the law can do, God accomplishes 

   1. by the power of the Holy Spirit, 

   2. through the Word or the ministry of reconciliation. 

      
      

2. This is the gospel about the Messiah, 

   1. through which it has pleased God to save believers, 

   2. in both the Old and the New Testaments.

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Summary

Commentators don't like Psalm 25. It doesn't fit neatly into their categories. It's mostly an acrostic (each line begins with a subsequent letter in the Hebrew alefbet), but one line, for whatever reason, doesn't fit the mold. The psalm begins addressing the LORD in the second person (In you, LORD my God I put my trust), then it switches to the third person (Good and upright is the LORD; therefore He instructs sinners in His ways) and continues to arbitrarily switch back and forth throughout. The psalm seems to lack a cohesiveness as it wanders from one subject to the next.

In other words, Psalm 25 is a poetic mess, a far cry from the literary works of wonder seen in other psalms - especially David's. But therein lies the beauty of Psalm 25: At its core, this psalm is a prayer, and it serves as a shining example that your prayers don't need to be polished and perfect to be effective.

David's prayer has all of the elements that Jesus taught us to pray with: He acknowledges who God is (All of the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful); He aligns his life with God's will (Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths) and he asks God for what he needs (Guard my life and rescue me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.) But as with the other aspects of Psalm 25, there's no particular semalance of order in how David organizes these elements; they just sort of spill out.

All of this to say that it seems clear here that David wasn't overly concerned with technical precision or literary beauty here in Psalm 25. He just open his heart and poured it out before the LORD. Keep this in mind as you pray as well. Don't worry about getting the order just so or using flowery words to make it look good. Just open your heart and talk to your Father.

  Dig Deeper  

We use the AAA Prayer Pattern to help pray as Jesus taught us in the Lord's Prayer:

• ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father in heaven. His name must be hallowed.
  

• ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: May your will be done, may your Kingdom come; Lead us not into temptation;
  

• ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Give us each day our daily bread;

Here's a question for you: in looking at David's requests for forgiveness, they seem to fit in both the alignment and asking categories:

11 For the sake of your name, LORD,

forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

What do you think? Jesus told us to ask for our debts to be forgiven, but which category does that fit in. Use the comment box below to share your thoughts (remember, it really doesn't matter what category you put it in as long as you remember to do it!).

AAA Prayer (About)

• ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, the LORD, in whom we put our trust;

• ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope, LORD, is in you;

• ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:

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Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Luke 21