Restore to me the joy of Your Salvation

Psalm 51:12 (NIV)

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

This Psalm was penned after David committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband put on the front lines of battle where he would be killed. David is feeling remorse for his sins and in prayer asks God to restore the joy of his salvation. “When we give ourselves so much cause to doubt of our interest in the salvation, how can we expect the joy of it? [Matthew Henry]”

On August 16, 1987, Northwest Airlines flight 225 crashed just after taking off from the Detroit airport, killing 155 people. One survived: a four-year-old from Tempe, Arizona, named Cecelia.

News accounts say when rescuers found Cecelia they did not believe she had been on the plane. Investigators first assumed Cecelia had been a passenger in one of the cars on the highway onto which the airliner crashed. But when the passenger register for the flight was checked, there was Cecelia's name.

Cecelia survived because, even as the plane was falling, Cecelia's mother, Paula Chican, unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecelia, and then would not let her go.

Nothing could separate that child from her parent's love—neither tragedy nor disaster, neither the fall nor the flames that followed, neither height nor depth, neither life nor death.

Such is the love of our Savior for us. He left heaven, lowered himself to us, and covered us with the sacrifice of his own body to save us. [Bryan Chapell, In the Grip of Grace (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992)]

We have a savior Jesus Christ who loves us so much He willingly gave His life as a sacrifice for all of our sins. Even knowing Christ’s love for us; we will still commit acts of sin that hurt others and hurt ourselves. It is in these time we often feel like King David that the joy of our salvation has been lost. We think, “How could God love us when we have done such horrible things?”  And yet, God does still love us. Had He not loved us He would not have sent His only Son to die for each and every sin we have committed and are yet to commit.

The Bible tells us in James 4:10,  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.