Verse of the Day for April 18

David describes the physical cost of not saying something out loud, and he is unusually specific about it.

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.

I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.

Read the sequence carefully. I said I will confess — and the forgiveness arrives in the same breath, before the confession is even reported as finished.

The relief is attached to the decision, not to the completeness of the account.

And the silence he describes was not peaceful. Keeping something hidden was the loud condition; confession is what made him quiet.

The energy spent maintaining an unsaid thing is enormous, and it is usually invisible until it stops.

He was forgiven at the point of deciding to speak.