“Let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones you have crushed rejoice.”  Psalm 51:8

I just saw a report that the majority of Americans feel sadness more often than gladness.  That’s a sobering stat, but I understand why.  The majority of people in this country do not have a living relationship with Jesus.  Those who know Christ intimately do not live life as the rest of the world.  Christians DO live the same environment, face the same challenges, and hear the same depressing news reports on a daily basis.  But believers can possess something the world cannot give– Joy and Gladness.

When David wrote this passage, he had just been rebuked by the Prophet Nathan for his sin with Bathsheba and for its cover-up.  Psalm 51 is all about David’s prayer of repentance.  His grief for his own sin had  left him “broken” to the point of being “crushed.”  And yet, in the middle of his emotional debris he referenced something not so familiar to this world.  He said, “let the bones you have crushed (through his clash with God), rejoice!”   

How can that be?  Shouldn’t he be sentenced to the pit– at least for a time?  Shouldn’t he fear that there will be no forgiveness for such a nasty set of sins?  Surely he should have to pay for his sins by doing something terribly harsh.  At the very LEAST he should NOT ask for joy and gladness from God.  How presumptive of him to expect God to give him joy and gladness after what he did!  How dare David to be that arrogant!

But David knew something about God that most people don’t.  God WANTS to forgive.  God DELIGHTS to wash sins away.  God LOVES to make things right between Himself and his creation.  King David knew that this rebuke– this correction from God– was intended to make him a better man.  He would learn a hard lesson the hard way, but in the end he would be clean and forgiven.  In the pain of brokenness, he could find something to rejoice about.

When I was a little guy of about seven years old, I got in trouble almost every day.  I remember thinking, “Am I going to have to get a spanking every day this year, even on my birthday?”  My parents were not cruel.  I was just unruly.  I had too much energy and too big of a mouth.  It was almost like clockwork.  The discipline usually happened just before supper, after my parents had fully digested my antics of the day.   Whoa!

And yet, I distinctly remember that a loving embrace always followed each disciplinary moment, and sometimes my mom even shed tears alongside me.  And then I would be ushered to the family supper table where everything was OK again.  The family laughed, and talked, and the offense wasn’t brought up again.   I wasn’t kept from the table, and I wasn’t kept from the love of my family.  How could that be?  It wasn’t easy to understand, but it was simply how things were in the Sims household.

And that’s how it is in the family of God.  We are in His family, and his love is ultimately redeeming and only temporarily punitive.

NOW THAT’S SOMETHING TO BE GLAD ABOUT!

“Let me hear joy and gladness….”

In the scripture, the word joy has nothing to do with feelings.  The New Testament word for joy is cara, which has the same root as the word for “grace.”  Grace is the undeserved favor of God.  Joy is not “feeling,” it is “knowing” that God loves and favors you.  So, joy has nothing to do with your circumstances.  No one can rob you of what you KNOW–  that “The Joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10)

And the word gladness simply the outward expression of our inward joy.

Remember the words of Jesus to his disciples:

“In the world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.”

Take heart today.  Hear joy and gladness.

You are favored by God!