Psalm 6: Rebuke

How good are you at receiving correction? I must admit, I’m not the best at it. The beginning of correction is not admission of guilt nearly as much as it is an acceptance of being wrong. It’s impossible to receive correction if we feel the need, the desire to explain why we may not have been right, but we also weren’t really wrong. I have plenty of times when my first response to correction is to explain my position or defend my actions. I’ve had too many episodes of pointing to someone else’s issues to cover my own errors. Correction, which is a gift that informs, redirects and sometimes even rescues, is most often received or responded to as if it were a punishment that seeks to humiliate us. What is it that makes us so offended by correction?

Psalm 6 is similar to the three Psalms that have preceded it in that the author, David, is found in a place of brokenness. He continues to call out to God for help, to feel the weight of his situation and to lament the attacks of his enemies. In the beginning of the Psalm, David cries out to God something interesting, “O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.” Notice, that David didn’t ask not to be rebuked, he asked that when the rebuke came that it would not be given in or because of anger. In his lowest and most emotional state, David was self-aware enough to realize that he needed a rebuke.

The Bible speaks pretty clearly about our need for and the nature of rebuke. Proverbs 27:5 says that an open rebuke is better than love that is hidden. In Revelation 3:19 Jesus said that He rebukes those that He loves. Paul wrote in II Timothy 3:16 that all Scripture is “God-breathed” and that one of it’s uses is rebuke. If rebuke is a necessity, if it is a tool used in friendship, discipleship and all love relationships, what is it? What does it mean to be rebuked? A quick Google search provides a definition of the word that sounds nothing like something you’d find in friendship or that you would associate with love, “sharp disapproval or criticism”. Who would want that? But, just a few lines ago, we saw Jesus saying, “Those whom I love I rebuke . . .” What is Jesus’ character? Have the Scriptures revealed Him to be sharp and judgmental? Has your experience been that He is critical and easily offended? A rebuke in itself is not sharp, disapproving or critical, it is nothing more than the revelation of something that is, has been or is going wrong. The nature of the rebuke is found in the character of the one who offers it.
David’s issue might have been similar to ours, we tend to expect sharp criticism every time we experience correction. We build up our walls, we prepare our arguments, we defend our position, we protect ourselves. Many times, I have been rebuked in love and have responded with a sharp, critical defense.  Why are we so afraid of being wrong that we lash out at those who are only trying to help us learn what’s right?

David prayed, “Don’t rebuke me in your anger” and then he prayed, “Don’t discipline me in your wrath”. Rebuke and discipline are a tag team that lose most of their purpose when they are not found together. If a rebuke is the revelation of something that is wrong, discipline is the correction that leads toward what’s right. To be told that we are wrong, to be corrected or rebuked, without being shown how to get to what is right, is cruel and vengeful. But to be taught the right way without ever revealing or pointing to the wrong we have chosen, believed or been held in will not create change. This is why repentance is the first step to salvation, why sins must be confessed and forgiven before transformation can begin, because if we don’t know, if we won’t acknowledge what has been wrong, we won’t commit to what is right. We will often try to mix the two together or moderate a way to slowly leave one to get to the other, but the turning on our heels that repentance portrays, the newness of life that salvation describes can’t be entered into with anything less than a rebuke followed by discipline.

I have found myself recently asking for rebuke, asking God for correction. I don’t believe that I’ve gone wildly astray, but I want to be more firmly established in the narrow way, I want to be more committed to being led by the Spirit and obedient to Scripture. I don’t just want a new path, I want to have the residue of the old one washed from me. I’m working to be better at taking correction. Isn’t it funny how freely we give it but how slowly we receive it? I’m praying that we will all know how much we need it. We tend to see clearly the wrong around us and blindly look past the wrong within us. My prayer today is that we will begin asking God for the rebuke that shakes us from where we have been and the discipline that leads to where He is going, that we will not be slack in either, but we will let rebuke and discipline do their work in our hearts so that once we’ve been corrected, we can be changed. I’m praying that we will live in the love of correction rather than the fear of rebuke.