The Sponsor Who Never Brought It Up

When Marcus first walked into the church basement for his recovery meeting in downtown Chicago, he carried a list of failures longer than the twelve steps he was about to learn. Three lost jobs. A marriage in ruins. A DUI that still made his hands shake when he thought about it.

His sponsor, a retired electrician named Frank, never once asked him to recite those failures. Instead, Frank showed up every Tuesday morning at the same diner on Halsted Street, ordered the same black coffee, and simply said, "Tell me about today."

Week after week, Frank walked Marcus through each step — not with lectures, but with patience. When Marcus relapsed in month four, Frank didn't remind him of every other time he'd fallen. He just said, "Call me tomorrow morning. We start again."

That is what David reaches for in Psalm 25. "Remember not the sins of my youth," he prays, "but according to your steadfast love remember me." David had his own list — longer and darker than most. Yet he knew something about the Almighty that changed everything: God's guidance never comes packaged with shame. The Lord teaches sinners the way not by rehearsing their failures but by walking beside them through each faithful next step.

Every path of the Lord, David tells us, is "steadfast love and faithfulness." Not one path of condemnation. Not one road paved with old regrets. Only mercy, leading us home.