Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. —Psalm 51:12.
In the face of sin and separation from God, grace is God’s refreshing stream that restores our salvation — making it existentially real to us. In our struggles with suffering, grief, and loss, only God’s grace and his Holy Spirit ministering to our spirits can help us find a sustaining and willing spirit. This ongoing joy of salvation comes only when we realise and accept the forgiveness, grace, restoration, and Spirit-inspired refreshment God has given us — in other words, we get to drink from the stream of grace as the Holy Spirit wells up within us with heaven’s living water to refresh us (John 7:37-39). So we can say with confidence that God will restore to us the joy of our salvation, and he will grant us a willing spirit to sustain us!
Psalm 51 is written as David’s confessional response for his grievous and multiple sins in his abuse of power with Bathsheba and her husband, Uriah. God clearly answered David’s prayers, because he did not remove the Holy Spirit from him as he did with Saul, and David returned his heart to the ways of the Lord.