Often, the psalter causes us to stumble for lack of underestanding how to read it.  We sometimes find the vengeful language of the psalmist calling out for God to bash his enemies offensive, or the bald tirades railing against God seem ungrateful, if not dangerously close to blasphemy.

Psalm 26 gives us another example of a theologically incorrect prayer.  The psalmist insists throughout this psalm that he is blameless and without fault in the eyes God.  Few human beings are willing to speak with this sort of arrogance, making claims to perfection.

Elsewhwere in the Bible, we are assured that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" and "If anyone claims he is without sin, he lies."  Even the psalter contends "If you remembered our transgressions, O God, who could stand?"  The notion of universal sinfulness is strongly rooted in the soil of scripture.

Even if it weren't, the author of this psalm is reported to be David, who is certainly aware of his own faults elsewhwere (se Psalm 52, for example.)  How can the psalmist use such puffed up rhetoric in this psalm?

I suppose the answer is simple enough, even if we don't want to hear it.  The psalms are cries of the human heart.  I'm quite certain that if we asked the psalmist to outline his systematic theology, he would confirm that he believes in the universal sinfulness of humanity.  In his mind, he knows it is true.  But in his heart... at least in the moment of this prayer... he feels something different.

In his heart, the psalmist feels God owes him some sort of recognition for his sacrificial righteousness.  This is the cry of a child in the check out line whose mother has denied him candy:  "But I've been GOOD!"

Of course the psalmist knows that his pathetic little claims of purity are silly.  Of course he knows intellectualy that God certainly owes him nothing.

But prayer is exemplified to us in this psalm as the honest cry of the human heart:  "This is how I feel, O God."  It takes a lot of faith to believe that you can talk this way to God without endangering the relationship.