All of us have unhealed parts, “hidden faults” (נסתרות) of which we are not fully aware. “Blind spots.” Therefore king David prayed, “Who can discern his errors? cleanse me from secret faults” (Psalm 19:12). We are cleansed by confession, that is, by looking within our hearts to uncover deeper motivations… If we are honest with ourselves we may discover, for example, that we are angry or fearful people, despite how we otherwise wish to regard ourselves. If you find yourself unable to let something go, for instance, some pain or failure of the past, remind yourself that you must do so if you want to move on with your life. Focusing on how things could have been different is to be enslaved to the past. The goal of teshuvah (repentance) is to turn us back to God for life, but to do this, we must be be willing to let go of what makes us sick.
Note that the Hebrew word translated “errors” (i.e., שְׁגִיאוֹת) comes from a root word (שָׁגָה) that means to wander, stray, or transgress. The question raised by David is rhetorical: “Who can discern his errors?” No one – apart from divine intervention… David asked to be cleansed from his “secret faults,” which are not those that were performed by him “in secret,” but rather those that were unknown, unseen, and unconscious to his own sense of awareness. These are “mindless” sins, unthinking offenses, hidden dispositions, character defects and actions that a person unwittingly performs, perhaps because of deep forces of which he was oblivious. These are the “secret sins” set in the light of God’s face (Psalm 90:8); the “sluggish darkness” of the human heart that leads to death and ruin: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and incurably sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). How many of us, after all, are fully aware of what we are doing when we are doing something? How many of us are completely transparent both to ourselves and before God, with no unclear motives, etc.? We must always be vigilant… There is always the force of habit, or the subconscious desires or conflicts of the inner life, that work on us, not to mention the trauma of our past and the present devices from the enemy of our souls. May the LORD give us the willingness to be healed, even if there are parts of ourselves that seem to resist that healing. Amen.
