Psalm 51 and Making Choices

I've gained a new appreciation for Psalm 51 this week. It's a fairly familiar Psalm, but I never took note that it was written after Nathan confronted David about his choice to sin - first with Bathsheba, and then with the murder of her husband. David knew he had sinned. It must have felt like a punch in the stomach when Nathan came to him and pointed out that both he and God knew his sin. We so often deceive ourselves by thinking that these secret sins really are secret. We make wrong choices every day don't we? It may not be adultery - but every day we choose some sort of sin--to be unkind, to gossip, to lie, to covet. We may not think anyone notices, but what a reminder that God does. He knows it all. We're so naked in front of Him we don't even know we're naked! But still--Psalm 51 reminds us that we He is a gracious God, full of lovingkindness, full of compassion to forgive us. He cleanses us from our sin when we ask it of Him, we don't need to hang on to it. Every wrong thing we do, we do it against God, we are evil in His sight, because there can be no good thing in us without the Holy Spirit. He is right to call us sinful/evil people. But still . . . He desires us to know truth in the deepest part of us, He died so that we can be scrubbed clean--cleaner even than the whitest snow with the sun sparkling off from it. We ask Him to hide His face from our sins, but what a mistake that would be. Only He can create in us clean hearts, and instill us with a steadfast spirit. We can implore Him not to withdraw from us and know that He will not - His Holy Spirit is His gift to us. He will restore us to the joy of His salvation, all because He loves us and we seek after Him. He will open our lips to sing His praise. Hearts that are broken from our sinfulness, hearts that are full of regret for our sin, are the sacrifice that He desires. He longs to restore us to a right relationship with Him. We have only to ask Him and He will do it.

Will You Also Go Away?

This is the question Christ asks in John 6:66-69. I wonder - do we have the courage to stay?

Further in Day 4 Beth takes us to Luke 7:18-23 where John the Baptist sits in jail, surely wondering what went wrong, and why Jesus is ignoring Him. The King James she quotes succintly says "Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me." (v.23).

I like the amplified, which brings this verse more alive to me:

And blessed (happy - with life-joy and satisfaction in God's favor and salvation, apart from outward conditions--and to be envied) is he who takes no offense in Me and who is not hurt or resentful or annoyed or repelled or made to stumble [whatever may occur].

Ouch! I definately need work in this area!

Our Secret Weapon

The whole story in 2 Samuel 6: 1-11 is a little confusing isn't it. It seems as though Uzzah is doing the right thing. Just trying to take care of God. But instead,God strikes him dead. David Guzik explains this in a way that makes it easy for us to understand. There we learn that in David's eagerness to bring the ark to Jerusalem, He choose to disobey God's instructions. The ark was not guided by the Levites, the ark was pulled, not carried, then Uzzah touched it. The commentary says:

i. Uzzah made a decision in a moment to disregard God's command and do what seemed right to him. Even our decisions made in a moment matter before God.

We do this often in our lives, don't we? At least I do. I listen to people nowadays, and everything seems to be okay to them--living without sexual purity, having abortions, drinking, drugs. Everything is everyone's choice (this part is true), and they don't seem to make the connection to following God's choice. We've become blind and deaf to being the holy people God has called us to be. It's hard, isn't it? It's hard to live a holy life. It's hard to speak the truth in love.

This is what is so wonderful about praying scripture. It's our own secret weapon against the apathy in our families and society. It's our secret weapon against the apathy in ourselves. I love how putting my name in a verse makes it come alive for me in my situation. I love how I can take a verse and say "thank you" to God for the attributes that are listed there. I love how we can do as Beth suggests and pray verses for our family and trust that God will hear those prayers. I love how He strengthens us when it feels to us as though our prayers are not being heard. I love how He gives us friends (and sometimes strangers) to help us through. One of the verses that helps me through is John 6:57 (amplified):

Just as the Living Father sent me and I live by (through, because of) the Father, even so whoever continues to feed on me (whoever takes me for his food and is nourished by me) shall (in his turn) live through and because of me.

I hope the Father is nourishing you this week . . .