“Create in me a pure heart, O God”…
That’s the familiar tune we all know, but the writer of The Message puts it as follows,
‘Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean, scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don’t look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!’
Psalm 51:7
This is how I have felt at times, when my spirit was broken and my actions had proven that I am not very faithful to God and His commands. That I am going astray easily. That I have allowed my thoughts to drift from the truth. That I have begun to believe to be someone I don’t want to be.
And how easy it is to get yourself in a mode of unforgiveness towards yourself. You feel you have blown it again, you feel so stubbornly stupid about your own behavior, that you decide to dwell on not forgiving yourself, for the time being. You want to punish yourself for your behavior. But what happens is that you cannot eat and drink and be happy, but that you are standing in the way of complete healing. It feels like a gray period, where enjoyment of life is incomplete.
Come on, stop it, go to God with it, and forgive yourself as well. Put a fresh wind in your sails!
End of article.