Today’s Scripture Reading (January
16, 2013): Psalm 51
We like to
think that we are good. We like to believe that we are the upright people. We
are the ones in the right. A number of years ago I went through a counselling
session with another man that was angry at me. And I recognized before I even
went to the sessions that there was a lot that I had done that was wrong. It
was a blow to everything that I wanted to believe about myself. I was the one
that had mishandled the relationship. And so I resolved to go into the sessions
and do what I really did not want to do; just admit my shortcomings. It is a
hard thing to do, and we are not always honored for the decision.
A number of
years ago I was working in a Toyota dealership as a parts man and I was once
again confronted with my shortcomings. In this case it was a part that was mis-ordered
for a customer. She brought her car in to get it fixed and I was confronted
with the fact that the part that I had ordered was not the one that she needed.
The service manager said that he would take care of it and just tell the person
that it was Toyota’s fault – but that did not set right with me. So I told him
that I would handle it – and I would handle it by telling her the truth. So,
later in the day, the customer returned and I laid my soul bare about the
mistake I had made. I still remember the first word out of her mouth in
response to my truth. The word was ‘liar.’ Whatever the truth was, it was not
what I had told her.
I think
David believed deep down that he was a righteous man. Why else would God
himself come and anoint him – lifting him up from being a shepherd in the
field, the youngest son of a large family of sons, to being the king of the
nation. But it did not take long for his own behavior to betray him. And as the
prophet Nathan confronts him about his behavior with Bathsheba, everything that
David wanted to believe about himself came crashing down around him. He was
broken and undeserving of everything that God had given to him.
In response,
David writes this Psalm. It is really a prayer – a conversation between him and
God. And in it he asks God to ‘create’ in him a clean heart. The word that he
uses for create is the same word that was used in the creation saga of Genesis.
And the meaning of the word is – to make something new, something that has
never existed before. This is David’s admission, not that he had fallen from
great heights, but that he needed God to create in him something that he had
never been before – no matter how much he had wanted to believe that he had.
What is
right for David is also true for us. What we need more than anything else is
for God to create and continue to create in us a spirit that has never been
there before. It is our ultimate need – and it is God’s ultimate gift.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm
32
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