Garments Of Gladness

David understood that God has the power to transform our sorrow into joy. If we read between the lines, it seems that he became proud of his accomplishments and was taking his ease in Zion when something bad happened. Dr. Wiersbe believes it was an illness. What ever God allowed to come David’s way humbled the great king. Obviously, God’s agent of sorry brought David great distress and the distress brought him to his knees. God often allows things to happen to us in order to humble and teach us. David knew he had sinned and he felt God’s chastening anger in the incident. God’s chastening brings sorrow but God’s grace brings joy. God’s chastening is a guest for the night but the joy of grace is for all eternity. David went on to testify…You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.

You can actually tell a lot about a person by the way they dress. We have clothes for leisure, clothes for work, clothes for play, and clothes to show off. Unfortunately, some folks don’t have enough clothes. A woman my age wearing short-shorts and a spaghetti top is uncool. The sight is not edifying and indicates very poor judgment. We have sad clothes for funerals {usually black or dark colors} and we have happy clothes for parties. Have you noticed that happy people like color, lots of color where as our melancholy friend prefer something plain. The vain are concerned about labels and styles because their chief concern is appearance and acceptance. My goal is to cover up the ugly and unseemly while maintaining as much comfort as possible. I don’t worry a lot about what folks think. Jason said something about one of my shirts and I told, “I don’t care what you think: I don’t care what anyone thinks.” Jason’s come back was: “You should.” My greatest concern is what God thinks and the clothes are no help in that department. I have to give an account to Him and that makes it my greatest concern.

The Jews wore sackcloth when they were in the sorrow mode. Sackcloth is like burlap, it is very rough and uncomfortable. They did not have the option of a cotton T-shirts underneath, the burlap was against their skin. The fabric is so course, rough and uncomfortable that it would be impossible to forget you had it on. We all have times of sorrow. Sooner or later, Sorrow will knock at our door and intrude like an uninvited guest. We may be anxious for it to leave and for believers, it will leave eventually. David said, “Sorrow may spend the night but JOY is coming in the morning.” As followers of Jesus Christ, we always have something to look forward to.

---