Ode to Joy

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Restore unto me the joy of your salvation. Psalm 51:12

Psalm 51 is one of the most raw and honest psalms in the Bible. It is written by King David after the prophet Nathan boldly confronts him about his sins of adultery and murder. David is convicted about the gravity of his sin, and grieved over the error of his ways. He pleads for mercy and asks God to purify him of his sin. Have you found yourself there, too? Maybe not for the same reasons —adultery and murder may not taint your origin story. But perhaps you carry the same kind of shame over your sin and have pleaded with God for forgiveness, mercy, and cleansing. Maybe you’re stuck in sin patterns, cycling through repentance and resolve, promising “never again” with tears in your eyes—only to find yourself back in the same place weeks later.

What does it take to really change this time?

David’s answer is surprising. After everything he’s done—after the exposure, the shame, the weight of what he cannot undo—you might expect him to ask for forgiveness, or a second chance, or the removal of guilt.

But that’s not what he asks for.

“Restore unto me the joy of your salvation.”

Sin < Joy

That request reveals something profound about how David understands the human heart.

David seems to think there is a correlation between overcoming sin—including the guilt or shame associated with sin—and the joy of salvation God offers him.

There is something to this. There is a strong correlation between the source of sin that can be traced back to a lack of joy in the things of God. That somehow restoring the joy of following God eradicates the sin we get tangled up in.

It functions like this: when I am overcome with how good God is, overcome by how much he loves me, how faithful he is, how merciful, gracious, how kind he is—then there’s no room for anxious thoughts, for fear, anger, selfishness, or envy. I’m content. I’m satisfied. I’m filled with joy.

Whatever satisfaction David sought in all the wrong places was finally realized in the right place with the joy of God’s salvation holding its rightful place in David’s heart. And this can be true for all of us. The joy we long for and strive for can ultimately be found in God himself. David was fully satisfied in God. And we can be, too.

And David doesn’t say this only once. Throughout the psalms he returns to the same discovery again and again.

In another psalm he writes:

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy.

Psalm 16:11

Notice the connection David makes: joy and direction belong together. In God’s presence there is fullness of joy—and it is also there that the path of life becomes clear. 

Whether you’re a follower of Jesus or not, whether you profess to be a person of faith or not, we all have the desire to know which path is the right one for us. We want to know that we’re headed in the right direction rather than wasting our time endlessly in a roundabout. But what if there’s a connection there as well? It’s been said that boredom leads to mischief and we can see from the story of David that it can lead to a lot worse than that. So what if experiencing the full joy of being in God’s presence does more for us than make us happy in a moment? What if fullness of joy in God’s presence is the very thing that leads us down the life-giving path we long to find? Not just to avoid sin, but to live an abundant life, with fullness of joy!  

Wisdom, Comfort… Joy?

But here’s where many of us miss what David discovered. From my anecdotal experience, the reason many Christians still get tangled up with sin is because we don’t truly associate Jesus with abundant life. We seek the wisdom of Jesus because we recognize he may have some good advice to help fix my problem. He must be wise because he’s God, so that makes sense to us. 

Or because we see so many accounts of him caring for hurting people, that he must be a good source of comfort when I’m in pain. 

So Jesus is wise and he’s kind. But is he happy? Does he experience joy? Can I, in his  presence? I believe for many of us, we don’t go to Jesus for joy and happiness in our lives because we don’t see him as a joyful person. Simply put, we don’t believe that he will bring us joy. It’s a cliché, but we really do look for love in all the wrong places.

You Are My Joy

If that’s true—if we don’t really believe Jesus is the source of joy—then it subtly shapes the way we approach our spiritual lives. It is the motive that must change for us entirely. If we’ve come to a place where we are done with a life or a pattern of sin, ready to eradicate the sin and put it to death, as Scripture describes it, then this must be the motive behind any spiritual practice we engage in: to get God. 

Pray to get God, read the Bible to get God, abstain from sin to get God. You see, we typically pray, read Scripture, abstain from sin, in order to get things from God. Not for God himself. For many of us, he has not become our joy. The spiritual practices end up being a means to our personal achievements and fulfillment. They are not seen as a way to get more of God himself. If they were, then we’d come to a place where we can sincerely say that…

The joy of the Lord is my strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)

And when God himself becomes the goal—not just what he can give us—something powerful happens.This means that God doesn’t just give me what I need to scrape by and hope for the best, but that I am strengthened by the joy of the Lord to stand against temptation and attack. Suddenly verses that once sounded poetic begin to feel practical.

So that even when you experience trials and testing of many kinds, you can count it all joy. (James 1:2) And that’s the difference. That the joy of the Lord, his pleasure in us as his children, empowers us to live well, to flourish, and to be in right relationship with God and people.

This is why David’s prayer still matters for us today:

Restore unto me the joy of your salvation. So that I can experience fullness of joy and so that the joy of the Lord can be my strength when I’m disillusioned, when I’m discouraged, or struggling. In setbacks that I bring upon myself, or inflicted on me due to the sins of others. So that whether I have plenty or little, I can count it all joy in all my trials because God himself is my joy. 

What’s in the Ears

This is where I share a song or podcast I’m currently into. This song is one I’ve shared on another blog post, linked HERE. It is titled, Psalm 1 by Poor Bishop Hooper and touches on the themes mentioned here. Let me know if you check it out!

If this stirred something in you, share this post with a friend or drop a comment below. I’d love to hear what small step you’re taking towards the flourishing life today! And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss a thing.

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