I Was Senseless And Ignorant

"When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand."  ~Psalm 73:21-23 NIV

Remember this is the confession of the man after God's own heart; and in telling us his inner life, he writes, " I was senseless and ignorant " The word "senseless " here, means more than it signifies in ordinary language. David, in a former verse of the Psalm, writes, "For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. "  (Psalm 73:3) which shows that the arrogant he intended had sin in it. He puts himself down as being thus "senseless," and adds a word which is to give intensity to it; "I was senseless." How foolish he could not tell. It was a sinful folly, a folly which was not to be excused by frailty, but to be condemned because of its perverseness and wilful ignorance, for he had been envious of the present prosperity of the ungodly, forgetful of the dreadful end awaiting all such. And are we better than David that we should call ourselves wise! Do we profess that we have attained perfection, or to have been so chastened that the rod has taken all our wilfulness out of us? Ah, this were pride indeed! If David was foolish, how foolish should we be in our own esteem if we could but see ourselves! Look back, believer: think of your doubting God when he has been so faithful to you--think of your foolish outcry of "Not so, my Father," when he crossed his hands in affliction to give you the larger blessing; think of the many times when you have read his providences in the dark, misinterpreted his dispensations, and groaned out, "All these things are against me," when they are all working together for your good! Think how often you have chosen sin because of its pleasure, when indeed, that pleasure was a root of bitterness to you! Surely if we know our own heart we must plead guilty to the indictment of a sinful folly; and conscious of this "foolishness," we must make David's consequent resolve our own--"You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory."   Praise the Lord, God bless