Genesis 38:20 – 23
Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her. 21 He asked the men who lived there, “Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?” “There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here,” they said. 22 So he went back to Judah and said, “I didn’t find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here.’” 23 Then Judah said, “Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn’t find her.”
Psalm 32:1 – 4
Blessed is the one
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the one
whose sin the Lord does not count against them
and in whose spirit is no deceit.
3 When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night
your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer.
Once when I was about five years old, I was shopping with my mom and I disobeyed her instructions and stole a shuttlecock (the flying thing in badminton), which, to my five year old self, looked like a spaceship. Guilt-ridden, I started playing with it in the car so she could see it. She immediately reparked the car and took me in to see the manager; I thought I almost got “arrested!” I learned my lesson and my conscience had been cleared!
How heavy is the burden of sin? People think they will get away with stealing from their company, having a hidden relationship, or with a simple lie. While on the outside it may seem like they got away with it, inside they are living in a prison of a downward spiral of self-confidence and fear of being found out.
In Psalm 32:1-4, we tend to want to focus on those first two verses, but reread verses three and four. Our lives progress to verses one and two by confessing and repenting of that which caused verses three and four. The longer we wait, the harder it gets, the higher the price, and the bigger the scar. For Judah, this would cost him dearly in many ways, but for him and for us, the promise of verse one holds our hope: Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered (Psalm 32:1).