(This first published on Crosswalk.com and in the Crosswalk Devotional, adapted below.)
Many of us have heard people talk about the Lord’s complete forgiveness and unconditional love but can expect Him to withhold both when we mess up. Most often, this stems from times in which others responded to our mistakes with some degree of emotional distance. I can relate. For decades, I struggled to fully receive God’s grace, and sometimes still do. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I find the words recorded in Psalm 103:8 so beautiful.
It reads:
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love (NIV).
Written by David, ancient Israel’s second king, this verse reiterates the way God revealed Himself to a man named Moses around four hundred years prior.
This occurred shortly after the Lord’s newly liberated people rebelled against Him to worship idols. Following, God told Moses that He wouldn’t accompany him and the Hebrews into the new land He’d promised them. But then He appeared to relent and in Exodus 33:15 stated, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Perhaps confused, or simply wanting to experience more of the God with whom he’d already come to converse with as a friend (Ex. 33:11), Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” One could phrase this as, “Reveal the essence of who You are.” God did, declaring Himself compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness.
David likely knew how the Lord described Himself to Moses and how consistently He lived out those traits with the often faithless and rebellious Hebrew people. In today’s verse, He praised God for those same qualities. While Scripture doesn’t reveal David’s circumstances when he wrote Psalm 103, we do know from other passages that He landed in numerous situations that plunged him into despair and overwhelming fear. We also know that God faithfully cared for, protected, and defended David throughout His life. And, the Lord showed David grace when he failed as a father, a king, and chief commander over the Israelite army.
In other words, David hadn’t simply learned of the Lord’s love, mercy and compassion from Scripture. He’d experienced those same traits when he’d desperately needed them. Likely reflecting on who God was and all He’d done, David began his prose with a praise that arose from his inmost being, the deepest and truest part of him. He then recounted numerous blessings God provided—forgiveness for even the worst of sins, emotional and physical healing, restoration of seemingly hopeless lives, provision, vitality, justice for the oppressed, and guidance for those who find themselves wandering about in desert places.
In verse 4, we read that the God who “redeems [our] life from the pit” also “crowns [us] with love and compassion.” One might phrase this as, “He rescues us in our weakest and most helpless state and enveloped us in grace.” When the devil tries to bury me in toxic shame, I’m reminded that God’s favor toward us stems from His goodness alone, and not from anything we have or haven’t done.
Because while He is the Almighty Creator of all that exists and the One who holds all authority in His powerful hands, that wasn’t how He most defined Himself to Moses, and therefore, to us. When we reflect upon who He is at His core, He doesn’t want us to think of His anger. Instead, He wants us to recognize, intellectually and from personal experience, that He is first and foremost a God of unfathomable love and grace.
Expanding on this, David then drew an analogy between the Lord and caring parents (Psalm 103:13). Our heavenly Father views us with more tenderness than an attentive mother with an over-tired two-year-old and a patient dad with an emotionally dysregulated middle schooler. Because, as verse 14 states, “he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust” (NIV). In other words, He remains cognizant of our humanity.
The Lord recognizes how much we long to please Him and how grieved we feel when we mess up. He sees our ongoing struggle against sin and the wounded places in our souls that cause us to react in fear and self-protection. And while He’s given us everything, in Christ and Scripture, to stand firm, whatever we face, He also understands how easily we become deceived.
He has compassion for who we truly are, in all our weaknesses and sins, and responds to our greatest failures with mercy and forgiveness, rather than anger and condemnation. Living in that reality helps us rise again when we fall, with our gaze fixed not on our past nor our shame but on the Savior who proved every word of today’s verse true when He died on the cross to quite literally redeem our lives from the pit of hell (verse 4).
“For Your steadfast love is great above the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let Your glory be over all the earth!” (Psalm 108:4-5)
