He Knows Our Frame

He Knows Our Frame

A Love That Surpasses All Sin

Psalm 103

Each morning when I take time to pray and study God’s word, I begin by praying through the Creation-Fall-Redemption narrative that forms the Bible. I acknowledge that God personally made me and recognizes me as a good creation (Gen. 1:27-28). I then see the reality that I have fallen. We all have fallen. I was born into sin (Psalm 51:5) and I betray God daily with my transgressions that separate me from God. I ask God to reveal my sin to me and I feel the weight of my depravity. But I finish with God’s redemption. I walk through the gospel narrative and see that the punishment I deserve to bear has been paid for with the blood of Christ.

I find this to be a good practice, but I sometimes get stuck when I acknowledge my depravity. I see all of the anger I have felt, the ways I have lusted and envied, and I see the presence of pride and self-righteousness in my life. The weight of this sin is sometimes too much for me to bear and I have difficulty seeing how God could redeem me when I am so dead in my sin.

This is why I have learned to rely so heavily on Psalm 103. It is a beautiful psalm of praise written by David that paints a picture of God’s mercy. God is the one who “forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit” (Psalm 103:3-4). The psalm has a way of reminding me of God’s wonderful and perfect character and has a way of lifting the burden of sin off of me as I am reminded of what Christ did for us.

In the middle of Psalm 103, there is something of a change in the tone of the writing as David takes a brief and rather bleak turn, “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.” (Psalm 103: 4-16). This reminder of our mortality not only serves as a way of showing the insignificance of the desires of the flesh, but I have also come to believe that these verses are meant to be a part of our appraisal of God’s goodness. God knows our frame and intimately sees and even experiences the human condition through Christ’s humanity and responds with compassion.

The psalmist follows these verses by proclaiming the infinite and perfect love of God, “the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting” (Ps. 103:17). God made each of us from dust and to dust we shall return, yet the unfathomable love of God redeems us from the pit we are stuck in because of our sin and we too can rejoice because of the ever-abundant joy and salvation that comes from having a God whose steadfast love is “as high as the heavens are above the earth” (Psalm 103:11).

Thoughts for Reflection:

After reading the psalm in its entirety, do you see David’s observance of human mortality in this psalm to be a way of praising God?

Do you ever struggle with overcoming the guilt of sin in your own life? Do you have any strategies for overcoming guilt?

How could you work to find joy in the reality that the problems and suffering of this world are overcome by God’s love and compassion?

All Saints Contributor - Zach Riddiough