Life with the Spirit offers dialogues with God that nourish your spirit and soul. Through my first reading of the Bible in 1979, I was inspired to believe and listen for the voice of my new Lord. My journals are now salted with conversations with God as He personally encouraged, comforted and mentored me. The Spirit makes the thoughts of God known to those in whom He lives. That, dear Christian, is YOU.

Psalm 32: God’s dialogue with David.

I especially love the Psalms, whose authors were people like you and me. They not only praise God, they describe their personal problems in life and in relating to God. They felt what we feel and faced the challenges we face, in some form or another.

Psalm 32, written by David the shepherd king, is especially encouraging because it contains an actual dialogue between David and the Lord at a time when David has come face-to-face with his transgressions.

Having reached the other side of forgiveness, David describes the process he has come through:

Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord” —  and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him.

You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. (Psalm 32:1-7, NIV)

Here is a man like you and me, on his knees, tired of feeling the heaviness of his guilt. In his pride or stubbornness or sheer independence, David resisted humbling himself before God long enough to become physically ill, so consumed is he by his guilt and shame. He believes that God’s personal presence with him is the source of the heaviness of his soul. After all, all sin is a sin against the Lord himself, which makes all sin personal between a man and his God.

Guilt separates us from the comfort of God’s arms.

David can’t bear the weight of it all, and like the prodigal son, acknowledges his sin, and finds forgiveness. Even better, he has been restored to his safe place. The God whose heavy hand made David miserable over his sin is now now David’s hiding place again. David affirms his faith in God’s faithful presence and protection.

Now, the voice changes, which is clear when the speaker uses words David would never say to himself:

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you. (Psalms 32:8-9, NIV)

What an effective visual! We’ve all seen horses with bits and bridals in their mouths. We’ve seen their riders make them go this way or that by jerking on those bridle reins. I imagine this to be a pretty unpleasant experience, but of course, the horses aren’t talking.

Let’s recap: David’s own bad behavior has caused him misery. He trespassed against God’s righteousness, but as soon as he confessed, God forgave and restored him to the place of covenant closeness and protection. (In fact, David never actually left that place, but his guilt and shame separated him from his confidence in it — as it does most of us.)

When David reaffirms his faith in God’s faithfulness, God responds by affirming his desire to personally counsel David as he keeps “a loving eye” upon him. And by the way, if David ignores or refuses or rebels against God’s loving guidance, he will put himself in a position to be guided only by the “unpleasant jerk” of a bad outcome to which foolish choices lead.

The unpleasant jerks in life.

You may know what that is like. Maybe you didn’t seek or accept God’s leading about which job to take, and ended up working for a boss who is a real jerk. Or you ignored the warning signs and married someone who jolts you out of your joy place on a regular basis. Perhaps you bought that car that was outside your budget because you expected a raise, but that jerky boss didn’t see your value, so every time you want to splurge on something fun, the limits of your finances yank it out of reach.

God doesn’t want you to go through that! He is always offering the wise way. His default is to guide and mentor you as a real Father, Teacher and Friend, to help you make the kind of choices that bring blessing and build character. The Holy Spirit, your Counselor in Christ’s new covenant, wants to help you build a life that is righteous, fruitful and satisfying.

This isn’t just about obeying a holy God.

Obedience to God is always the right thing; but we tend to overlook that God loves us more than we love ourselves. God’s will IS His love coming to us.

I think David gets that, because he next responds to God with this affirmation:

Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him. (Verse 10)

David has already praised God for surrounding him with “songs of deliverance.” He takes in what God has said. Obeying God and following his leading will require trust. David has been there, in that uneasy place that requires trust in an unseen God.

It’s not easy to admit, but let’s face it: when we don’t obey God, it’s a good sign that we really don’t trust Him on some level. David has wrestled with that issue and he is speaking from experience. He has lived on the “woe” side of the fence and likes it better on the inside, surrounded by the love of God, offered in His guidance.

If I am trusting in God‘s wisdom and ways, rather than my own ways (annoyingly here classified as “wicked”) – I can be certain that whatever I am facing, His love is facing me as well.  That’s how I want to live.

Happy with his dialogue with God, David turns to the audience and says gleefully,

Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart! (Verse 11)

Trust in God is tested most in the little decisions of every day, as well as the big decisions of jobs or who to marry or where to live. Over the years the Spirit has led me often to Isaiah 30:15:

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, ‘We will flee on horses.'”

So, now you know, I’ve given God lots of challenges in the trust and obedience department.

Let me put God’s words another way: “I wanted you to repent of going in the same old direction you’ve always gone. I wanted you to back off consider your ways, and just sit with me. Rest with me, and consider my way. I know this requires trust; that sometimes you aren’t willing to give me that. I know because after you pray to me for help, you get up and ride off on your horse to solve your own problem.”

Have you ever done one of those trust exercises? If so, you know trust can only be proven by stepping into the risk. The story goes that a daredevil prepared to walk a tightrope from the top of one skyscraper to another, at a terrifying height. He asked the jazzed up group of spectators, “Who believes I can do this?” Many hands shoot up. He grabs the most enthusiastic believer, produces a wheelbarrow, and says, “Jump in and I’ll take you with me!”

Yes, it can be scary to get in God’s wheelbarrow. A friend of mine once said wisely, “Faith is spelled R-I-S-K.” But that’s why David wrote these words for us. He has tested the faithfulness of God and testifies, “the unfailing love of God surrounds the one who trusts in Him!”

In the following verses of Isaiah 30 the Lord describes the consequences of riding off to do your own thing. Then He says tenderly:

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!

How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.

Whether you turn to the right or to the left your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

This is the old testament validation that God communicates with and will personally guide His people. The New Testament affirmation of this is found in James 1:5-7 where it says,

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

God communicates to His people, and the record of his communication is found throughout Scripture. One of my favorite mentors, A.W. Tozer, wrote this in his classic “The Pursuit of God”:

“Much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception of and a wrong feeling for the Scriptures of Truth. A silent God suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever. Now we read the book as the record of what God said when He was for a brief time in a speaking mood. …God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak.”

God is a compulsive redeemer.

God didn’t just redeem you once from sin, death and hell; He keeps redeeming you again and again from your bad choices. He is always at work finding ways to lead you to more abundant life. Redeemer is His nature, His natural way of being, a fact the Psalmist reinforced for us:

O Israel, hope in the Lord;
For with the Lord there is lovingkindness,
And with Him is abundant redemption. Psalms 130:7 (NASB)

The Hebrew word underneath “abundant” literally means “multiplied.” Over the course of your life with God, the times he redeems you is multiplied! In other words, He is always working to make something good out of your bad choices and failings.

I hope you are inspired to run to God when you’ve messed up, instead of enduring the self-banishment that guilt brings. And to have your own dialogues with God!

We would love hearing how God has nourished you with His personal counsel, so feel free to share in the comments section below.