There are times when I get down on myself, having blow it yet again, doing the same stupid thing one more time.
I forgot to pick up my son from school for the tenth time. I got sucked into an argument with that person again. I ate too much again. My eyes wandered to where they shouldn’t go yet again. I let my sports team’s loss ruin my day again, including harsh words said to the family in my grumpiness. I shared gossipy tidbits again, this time about co-workers. I wasted another two hours on social media instead spending time with my family. I spent way too much money on clothes I don’t need again.
We used to call these and others like them “besetting sins,” actions that seems have their claws stuck into us. Deeds we can’t seem to shake, they pull us down over and over again.
The seven deadly sins — pride, envy, gluttony, lust, greed, sloth, and wrath (to which the enneagram adds fear and deceit) — hook us and, try as we might, we can’t seem to rid ourselves of them.
So, what do we do with these sticky sins? What do we do when we’ve tried to repent of our actions and move away from them only to circle back around and repeat them instead? Does God get tired of forgiving? Because I sure know that I get tired of confessing. How does this work? And is there a way to move forward?
It’s not just us as individuals who struggle with looping back on the same sins over and over, we tend to do this as families and churches and communities and nations. Reading the Bible, we see God’s people returning to the same stupid idolatries and injustices over and over again.
We human beings aren’t all that creative in our sinning. We’ve been breaking the same Ten Commandments for thousands of years and show no signs of stopping.
Psalm 85 approaches repeated sins communally. Probably written during the Exile, which was caused by Israel’s repeated sins, its key is the Hebrew word shuv, which means turn or return or restore. As we turn away from our sins, we are about to return to land of promise and are restored.
You, LORD, showed favor to your land;
you restored the fortunes of Jacob.
You forgave the iniquity of your people
and covered all their sins.
You set aside all your wrath
and turned from your fierce anger (Ps. 85:1-3).
There are many times throughout the Scriptures where God sets aside his boiling over frustration with his people and forgives them. The book of Judges repeats the same formula over and over again: We sin; we get into trouble; we cry out to God; God saves us by sending a deliverer; we’re fine for awhile. But easily the most prototypical of these is found in Exodus 32-33.
In that episode, the people sin by having Aaron make for them a golden calf as their representation of Yahweh. Yahweh gets angry and declares his intention to wipe them out. Moses talks God down, doing both the praying and the delivering.
One thing these stories and the Psalms in general ought to dismiss from us is the notion that God is dispassionate. That fake dispassionate God comes from Greek philosophy, not from the Scriptures. Nowhere in the Bible is it suggested that God lacks emotion and particularly anger. God gets angry plenty because we hurt him plenty.
Sin is not about breaking rules. It’s about breaking covenant. The rules are merely the conditions of the covenant, the protections put in place to preserve it. God is not a traffic cop who tickets us for driving over the speed limit. God is a Lover who is wounded by our rejection of him. He is a King who is attacked by our rebellion against him.
Anger is emotional pain. It is a natural response to rejection, to attack. By entering into a covenant relationship with us, God has made himself vulnerable to being hurt by us. And we cause him pain. Regularly. And so he backs off, giving us our space, and allowing us to feel the consequences of our behavior until we’re ready to return to him.
As a Lover, God loves to love us. He longs for our relationship with him to be reconciled. And so, he forgives even more quickly than he gets angry, for his goal is always restoration not retribution.
This is why the Judges formula repeats itself again and again. And it is to this that the Sons of Korah turn as they pen Psalm 85.
Restore us again, God our Savior,
and put away your displeasure toward us.
Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger through all generations?
Will you not revive us again,
that your people may rejoice in you?
Show us your unfailing love, LORD,
and grant us your salvation (Ps. 85:4-7).
The Sons of Korah recognize where they are in the Judges formula. The people have sinned (again!). And they have been dealing with the consequences of their sins (again!). So, they are crying out to God (again!), asking him to set aside his anger (again!) and save them (again!) by showing his unfailing love toward them (again!).
Now, this is both reassuring and frustrating at the same time. It’s reassuring, because God is there and ready to save out of his great love — again. But it’s frustrating because we’re sitting in the naughty chair — again.
I will listen to what God the LORD says;
he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants —
but let them not turn to folly.
Surely his salvation is near those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land (Ps. 85:9-10).
The name Ichabod means “the Glory has departed” and was first given in 1 Sam. 4:21-22. It’s a terrible name and is shocking that any mother would give it to her child, since children embody our hope. But with the death of the prophet/judge Eli, there was a sense that God had abandoned his people, that the Glory had departed.
Here, as Geoffrey Grogan suggests, we see the sons of Korah looking for an anti-Ichabod moment. Instead of departing, their looking for the Glory to dwell in the land, to be at home with God’s people.
This is the source of peace, of shalom. Nearness. Residence. God with us. God present to save us. We may be foolish, acting as if God doesn’t exist through our sins, but if he sticks with us, we are saved, truly saved.
If the Glory makes his home with us, all good things come together. They embrace like lovers.
Love and faithfulness meet together;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven (Ps. 85:10-11).
Love/mercy/kindness and faithfulness/truth (Hebrew: chesed and ’emeth) are the key duo of covenant loyalty. Chesed expresses the deep-seated emotional attachment God has for us. ‘Emeth expresses the integral consistency of character that is essential to his steadfastly unbreakable commitment to us. As wife and husband, the two become one as they meet in God.
Likewise, righteousness and peace (Hebrew: tsedek and shalom) pair the life that results in us. The righteous life is both personally whole in it moral integrity and relationally whole in its concern for neighbors and justice for the vulnerable. The peaceful life is like a completed puzzle. No pieces are missing. Everything is in it place, both personally and relationally.
And so, righteousness beams down like sunlight and faithfulness burst from the soil like a flower. Visualizing creation renewed by God’s renewal of his people, Psalm 85 moves from the metaphorical to the literal. The land itself is restored when the people of God are restored.
The LORD will indeed give what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.
Righteousness goes before him
and prepares the way for his steps (Ps. 85:12-13).
Yes, we will continue to stumble and tumble. Sins will beset us. But as we turn away from them each time, God will return us and restore us, because he never gives up on us, never walks away.
We may feel as if we live in Ichabod times, but it’s simply not true. The Glory won’t depart. The Glory will dwell. God will deal with us not out of his pained anger from our covenant disloyalty. Instead, God will deal with us out of his own chesed and ’emeth, out of his own love and faithfulness, which keep him committed to us no matter what.
Living within that truth is how we step out of sin and into wholeness and peace.