King David was ashamed and lost. He wept great tears and his spirit was deeply grieved.
Why?
He had come to his right mind and realized how deeply he, the shepherd boy made king, had grieved Almighty God. His mind ticked off every sin – every time he chose to rebel against God and His laws, and he judged himself guilty, guilty, guilty.
Psalm 51 is his lament song to God in this moment of despair. He knew that sin separated him from God, that his choices had created a rift that he could not repair.
David did the only thing he could. He confessed all he had done to God – agreeing with Him without excuse that what he had chosen to do was wrong. Then he turned from those ways. He made different choices. He determined to live according to God’s ways over his own.
He knew he could not continue on with his heart so broken and his spirit so crushed, so he asked God to change that.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.” he begged the Righteous One.
In essence he said he would make better choices, but he needed all that junk cleaned out of his heart – he wanted the brokenness and shame healed, and he wanted his spirit that followed God relentlessly restored.
We can do that. First we must grieve over our sin. We have to feel broken, not because we told a lie or gossiped, but because we did it against God Himself.
Then we must confess to God that it was, in fact, sin and therefore wrong. We should grieve before Him, our hearts breaking because we took our relationship with Him for granted and walked ourselves right into something He abhors.
Once in that position, we can look up to the One who loves us without measure and ask Him to create a NEW heart in us, a NEW way of thinking. We can ask Him to renew that crushed spirit we’ve walked all over, making it loyal to Him alone. That renewed spirit that is loyal to God will then help us to remain true to Him, nudging us when we’re about to step away.
Let’s start today. Let’s get real before God. He knows everything anyway. Agree with Him. Seek Him. Apologize. Ask forgiveness. Ask for renewal.
Then thank Him for it and walk as His.
Coffee, Bible, Journal.
