Chapter 25

David.

1st stanza - Let not my enemies win.

2nd - Teach me your ways

3rd - Don't remember my youthful sins

4th - God's ways are good

5th - God is a friend to those who fear Him, who look to Him.

6th - A request to be delivered from trouble, distress and affliction.  For forgiveness of sins.

7th - Asking God to note the number of enemies and their intense hatred, and to deliver him from them.

2024 - This verse:

7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O LORD! [Psa 25:7 ESV].  Sometimes in prayer I remember the things I've done.  The secret things that no one ever discovered, the worst things, the ones I'm most ashamed of.  I ask forgiveness for them at the time, but look at how David deals with them!  God forget these sins.  Put them away, and never thing of them.  Remember me because you love me, and don't dwell on the mistakes of my youth.  I want to remember this one!

These verses for troubled times:

16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. 17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses. 18 Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. [Psa 25:16-18 ESV]

This is such a good prayer for me to be praying right now.  While the trouble in the country right now is not directed right at me, I still feel like a target because of the success God has given me.  I feel like I need to protect all my family, but mostly, they don't think protection is needed, they ignore the threat, they take no precautions.  Either that, or I am afraid of things that are so unlikely to happen.  The troubles of my heart may indeed be enlarged.  Oh God, bring me out of my distresses!

Still thinking about this one on 7/5....

Is this saying that sins committed under duress - when we are in  extreme affliction and trouble - should be more readily forgiven?  If  so, it would also follow that sin is more likely in dire circumstances.   Is this why Jesus so easily forgave Peter for his three denials but was  so hard on David for his sins in connection with Bathsheba and Uriah?

Or is this just a good prayer to pray when things seem dark and we feel  helpless, and we really need God's help...but we know that we have  sinned in some way and become disconnected from God as a result?  For  myself, slipping does seem more frequent when I am having trouble coping  with "real life".

This verse is next in the text:

19 Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me. [Psa 25:19 ESV]

This describes the organized violence that's been going on.  And I fear because the protectors are being de-funded.  They are going away.  Corruption is seeping in at all levels.  Violence to some is ok, to others it gets a nuclear response.  So out of whack right now.

Seems kind of like David is asking that his sins, the sins of one man, though they are great, be forgiven and that he be preserved rather than allowing the many enemies, who hate him and would do violence and would shame him win instead.  David is not claiming to be perfect, but is asking that God preserve him instead of the evil directed towards him.  I think we see this line of reasoning from David a number of places.  Try to find some more of them.

I think I remember this theme elsewhere.  And there is also the theme of allowing evil to continue for the sake of the good that would be also lost in its destruction.  Sodom and Gomorrah for instance.