Restore to Me the Joy of Your Salvation

Psalm 51:12

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”

When I was younger, I read this psalm without fully grasping the depth of David’s pain. I understood the words, but I had not yet lived them. I had not yet walked through failure so devastating that I could only cry out from the depths of my soul.

David had failed—miserably, publicly, and in ways that most of us could hardly fathom. He had taken another man’s wife, gotten her pregnant, and when he couldn’t cover his tracks, he arranged for her husband to be killed. For a time, it seemed like he had gotten away with it. No judgment had fallen. No consequences had come. But then the prophet Nathan arrived with a parable and a piercing truth: “You are the man.”

David’s response in Psalm 51 is not the desperate attempt of a man trying to salvage his reputation. It is not the plea of a king trying to hold onto his throne. He does not beg to keep his kingdom or even the life of the child who would die as a consequence of his sin. His greatest fear was something far greater: the loss of God Himself.

“Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.” (Psalm 51:11)

David had tasted the joy of God’s presence, and the thought of losing it was unbearable. More than the shame, more than the loss, more than the public disgrace—he feared a life apart from God.

A Prayer Born from Pain

After my own failure, I felt this prayer in a way I never had before. It was no longer just words on a page; it was my cry, my longing, my desperation.

“God, please… don’t leave me.”

I whispered it through tears. I wrote it over and over in my journal. I wept it in the dark, clinging to the hope that He was still there.

But for years, I felt nothing.

For almost seven years, I begged to feel His presence again. But the silence was deafening. I thought I had gone too far. That I was too broken to be repaired. That whatever grace had once been available to me had been used up.

Then, one night, while driving, drowning in my own sorrow, I heard His voice:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 5:3)

Through my weeping, I cried back, “Then the kingdom of God must be mine.”

And in that moment, for the first time in years, I felt Him again.

Hope in the Darkness

The darkness of failure is suffocating. The weight of shame is a burden I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. But even there, in the silence, in the pain, in the absence I thought would last forever—God was walking with me. He had never left. He had been carrying me the whole time.

If you are in that place now—if the night is dark and your soul is heavy—hold on. The pain of failure is real, but so is the presence of God. And even when you cannot feel Him, He has not abandoned you.

He is still near.

And one day, the joy of His salvation will be restored to you again.