Ps 17 15 And I-in righteousness I will see your face;
when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.
In this Psalm we are being taught the Psalmist perspective on inability. The Psalms teach that inability is the attitude that we have as we rise up to the full effect of the curse. We are taught in the Psalms that Gods law represents the extent and the standard by which we live in reality. When sin entered the world we were not only subject to curse and the darkness of the withdrawal of Gods blessing but we were prevent from meeting the standard that we enjoyed in the garden. This perspective is absolutely essential in satisfying our frustration by the understanding of inability as if we were given a cold drink of water after we had run a marathon. The point is that we are not comforted in the doctrine of inability in the teaching that the law shows us our sin and we acknowledge our inability to keep it. That is falling back on guilt and being relieved by understanding that Christ work on our behalf gives us acceptance. In this sense we are unable to achieve acceptance by what we do. But this is always remaining in the same step to God mentality.
In the Psalms inability gives us the right to appeal to God with in the spirit of justification that defines forgiveness and acceptance without us going through those steps. Because God is dealing with us according to our limits and not the violation. It is drawn from this logic that God established the success of Israel through eliminating the nations who worshiped false gods. In other words God cleansed the nation of Israel and the people were unable to be tempted from those nations. In this logic every opposition that we face rises to the level of the full curse. Because God acted to prevent Israel from destroying themselves by preventing their temptation. God dealt with them as a people who were unable to prosper with opposition. He dealt with Israel not according to their righteous but according to their inability to withstand the opposition. 30 8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;give me neither poverty nor riches,but give me only my daily bread.9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'Or I may become poor and steal,and so dishonor the name of my God." Solomon is teaching that the power of the curse is too strong to overcome. In order to rise up to his highest enjoyment in this life , he must not be prevented by the weight of the opposition in the curse. In this Psalm ,David is complaining about the limits that he must endure because of the success and the propagation of evil men.
The terms used about the behavior of wicked men are constraining the Psalmist experience of God and his ability to fully prosper. He uses words like assail, close up, track me down, like a lion hungry for prey and surround me. You will find that the Psalmist uses his sin as a complaint because it is a weight that prevents him from his full success. So he considers his sin in the category of inability but the opposition of this world he uses the law in his complaint to overcome these limits. In other words if we are able then there is no need for the curse. There is no need for God to destroy our opposition. So inability goes beyond our application that we simply must accept the limits in this world and fall on the side of humanism. But inability rises up in the curse and confronts the opposition in the spirit of justified righteousness. 7 "Show the wonder of your great love,you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes.8 Keep me as the apple of your eye;hide me in the shadow of your wings