This prayer of the younger version of David gives
voice to the plea of the innocent who looks to the Lord for vindication. If you
try my heart you will find it pure. I haven’t cursed those who curse me nor
returned violence for violence. I've stayed on the straight and narrow even
when your path was not easy to discern and have not given up my hope in you
despite the fact that the wicked have surrounded me and threaten my life. Of
course the Lord did deliver David from the wrath of King Saul and God never
abandoned him even though there came a time when David’s heart, consumed by
lust and power, was no longer as pure as it was when he penned this prayer. So
the man after God’s own heart who prayed to be the apple of God’s eye was vindicated
not because of his innocence but because God’s steadfast love could not let go
of the young man hiding in a cave even when he was an older man hiding his sin
behind the curtain of the crown. To David’s credit he understood his deepest
desire was for his Psalm 51 heart (Create in me a clean heart, O God) to be
recreated so he could pray Psalm 17 again. Or as St. Augustine penned it, “Our
hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”
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