Psalm 51:8 from the Broken King

Did you hear about the famous quarterback’s gimpy ankle? Will the Cardinals’ famous pitchers be able to pitch this year with the bum arms and all? Did you see how that famous obese writer is shedding pounds…he must be ill! Throughout our lives we all get blessed with injuries and illnesses. How we learn from these events will determine how much of a blessing they turn out to be. Looking back at my childhood, it is no small miracle I am here to write this piece of journalistic smorgas-bore for your enjoyment today. My childhood was wrought with wounds, gouges, fires and accidents. I was the youngest of three kids and found myself on the short end of a physiological bludgeoning more often than not. Take the following list for example…
Before the age of 16:

I ran through a plate glass door chasing a sibling ala Mr.T. Getting the non-safety glass out of arms can be a tedious chore.
I was hit with a full swing of a nine-iron golf club on the forehead, cracking my skull. (Insert misc. head injury joke of your choice relating to my writing prowess.)
I bashed my face into our porch step cracking teeth and surely not adding to my heinously good looks. (See notes from #2.)
I was shot between the eyes with a bb gun.
I broke a needle off in my foot playing the static electricity game on my brother while he mindlessly talked to his girlfriend on the phone.
I ripped a massive hole in my shin on a tent stake running at the local carnival…not the most interesting thing to happen to me at the carnival mind you…
I cut my Achilles tendon on my foot riding a bicycle barefooted. Being the Mensa candidate I wasn’t, I repeated the event a week after the repair and broke out all the stitches. The doctor butterfly bandaged it and gave me a referral card to his competition…I guess he had seen enough.
I played a game with my brother I’ll call “dead man’s dive”. He blindfolded me and led me throughout the yard and ultimately to the top of a wood pile. He told me to jump!...presumably out over the barb-wire fence next to the wood pile. Instead I landed on the fence and hung by my pectoral muscle (boob for those in Greenfield) until he rescued me from my meat hook agony.
I stubbed my big toe so many times in such a gory way the doctor fitted me with a special metal toe guard to try in vain to let it heal.

So what on earth does this drivel have to do with my faith or the cost of gas at Hot Spot? Psalm 51:8…our next verse from the study that began with me in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago.
Psalm 51:8 says “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.” Context is required especially if you are just joining us in this journey through one of the most meaningful chapters in the Bible. Psalm 51 is a psalm written by King David after sleeping with his general’s wife, getting her pregnant, trying to cover up his sin, and killing the general to avoid being found out. Nathan the prophet then heard from God and confronted King David about the sin. This Psalm is a song of broken remorse and requested healing and forgiveness from a crushed King to his God. David’s bones are being crushed under the weight of God’s wrath over this sin, and David, in a humble and contrite way, says “Uncle!”
Charles Spurgeon, in his wonderful Volume 1 of The Treasury of David explains the key to this verse said in a way that further illustrates my lack of writing skill when he wrote:
“ He groaned under no mere flesh wounds; his firmest and yet tenderest powers were broken in pieces all asunder;…Yet if He who crushed would cure, every wound would become a new mouth for song, every bone quivering before with agony would become equally sensible of intense delight! The figure is bold and so is the supplicant. He is requesting a great thing; he seeks joy for a sinful heart, music for crushed bones. Preposterous prayer anywhere but at the throne of God! Preposterous there most of all but for the cross where Jehovah Jesus bore our sins in His body on the tree.”

Looking back, I was tough as a kid! Sticks and stones and golf clubs may have broken my bones, but words were the first thing to really hurt me. The Bible showed me my sin just like Nathan showed David his. My point is that through all of the major and minor injuries I endured physically (listed above) and emotionally (through a verbally abusive step-father…they’re divorced now…and multiple divorces of my parents and the redicule of being fat), nothing remotely made the impression on me that the brokenness I felt the first time I pieced together the significance of Jesus’ sacrifice. Jesus Christ left Heaven to become a man to live on our fallen planet to save mankind. He healed the lame, raised the dead, and walked on water. What did we do for Him in return? We brutally killed Him! Why? Because of Mark Applegate’s (and your) sin. Someone had to pay the penalty for the sin we all committed against a Holy God. (Romans 6:23). Who cares about the cuts and surgeries of life? Let the wounds of my brokenness because of realizing how Good God is be a mouth for my song! I was guilty just like King David! Jesus paid my penalty on the cross for all my many sins before and after I came to know Him. Add up your sins…how often do you lie? Lust? Steal? Use His name in vain? (Read Exodus 20, then add them up!) Yet He died for you anyway. Simply amazing! David understood. I do too. How about you? If you want to get right with God, first review your sins, turn from them, then call on the One who died for you and let Him be Boss. Until you realize your need for Him, you will never find Him. Be humble (Read Proverbs 3:34) and broken like King David and you will find Him! When you do, trust me…you’ll know exactly what to say in your prayer to Him.

Weight update 293.8…lost 5.8 pounds...still enormous but shrinking fast! Bible verse for the week… Romans 5:8.