Thank you, sorry and please

Press the play button to watch the video above or press 'more' to read the transcript of the daily devotion below. Please read Psalm 32 (use your own Bible or use the link above to access the in-App Bible).

‘While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long…Then I acknowledged by sin to you…’ Psalm 32:3-4

I don’t know if you can remember having ‘three magic words’ drilled into you as a child? The three magic words my parents often reminded me of were: thank you, sorry, and please. (Actually that’s four words, but I didn’t spot that then!). Mothering Sunday is an appropriate day to reflect on this particular psalm, or prayer, of David. For it is in the context of home and family that we first learn to say sorry, and to forgive.

Sometimes in the family there can be an awkward silence, because someone cannot bring themselves to admit they are in the wrong and say sorry even though they know they should. Likewise, there can be a silence in our relationship with God, when the relationship is strained because we have not said sorry.

That is the experience David describes in verse 3, ‘While I kept silence, my body wasted away...’ Then everything changes in verse 5 when David continues, ‘Then I acknowledged by sin to you, ….and you forgave the guilt of my sin.’

The rest of the psalm is a beautiful thanksgiving for the experience of being forgiven by God. Because Christ died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15.3) we can, like David, find that a weight is lifted from us when we humbly confess our sins to God and seek His mercy.

‘Thank you, sorry and please’ can also form a good framework for saying our prayers each day. It is so easy when we pause to pray to go straight to ‘please’, yet if we look at the psalms we find that David spends as much time in thanksgiving and confession as he does asking for things.

As we turn to prayer now, why not make ‘thank you, sorry and please’ our framework? Start by naming before God things you are thankful for. Then ask the Holy Spirit to show you things you need to say sorry for. Having confessed them it is good to read a Bible verse like 1 John 1.9 to reassure ourselves of God’s forgiveness. Then finally, we can go on to say ‘please’ and bring our requests to God.

Let us pray: Lord, thank you for… Lord, I am sorry for… Lord, please… Amen.

The Venerable Mark Ireland, Archdeacon of Blackburn.