Psalm 51

There is something so sweet about the conviction of the Lord. You can spend as long as you want running from the truth, my heart can be hard, hurting, walled over with layers of self-righteousness, but if i show up long enough, if I keep asking, hoping and reading, eventually, in His gentleness, He will reveal the truth.

"For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge me." Psalm 51:3-4

Some sins are deceptive enough to masquerade as goodness. They seek what seems right, what seems decent, but they miss the mark just enough, they are nothing less than a complete and total miss... sin. Whether its the motives, the justification, or the way things are handled, when self-seeking intermingles with motives, everything is ruined. It's like yeast in bread. A little goes a long way. That little is the most dangerous part. They may come from "wisdom" or even be "right" but when executed with the intention of changing another, of protecting yourself, or getting a result you want, it is no longer wise or good and the power to tear down is so great, so treacherous and so perilous.

"Surely You desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place." Psalm 51:6

The hard part is when you ask the Lord to never let you settle, He won't. When He's sees something that needs to be rooted out, cleansed out, a motive that is insidious and destructive, He won't allow it to sit. He will root it out how ever He can. As you would expect though, the deeper, more hidden the motive, the more deceptive in its nature, the more pervasive in its reach, the larger the cost in ridding you/me of it.

It's just like the Lord to send me something so amazing, so beautiful, so powerful, only to let me have my hand at it and destroy it. It's just like the Lord to let me watch someone that loved me so much slowly turn into disdaining me as a fought harder and harder to keep the love. So focused on the other's mistakes, so focused on what I was losing, I couldn't see the forest for the trees. I couldn't see that giving up my need for love, that trying to prove my worth of the love so much would only squeeze the love out of it harder, faster and more effectively.

But I guess the loss, the marking and scarring is what truly keeps you humble. Only in great loss can great understanding come. Forever I will be marked and reminded of what desire for self can bring.

"Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice." Psalm 51:7-8

When an alcoholic goes through the 12 steps, one of the first steps is to apologize. It's humbling part of the process. It's the portion of turning around, looking back and realizing the havoc you have reeked on others. Selfishness is a lot like an addiction, its all about preserving that need. A lot of people can get destroyed along the way, especially the ones you love the most. Admitting to that, feeling their pain, mourning the outcome of your own devastation becomes a vital part of healing.

It's allowing him to break my bones. It's the discipline, the scourging needed to scare me enough to never want to go back. I can't ever forget the hurt it caused, me or the others and the only hope, the only way back to sanity, to forgiveness, is through the purging and cleansing He can bring.

Such a realization can't stop there though. Maybe just as hard is the moving forward of accepting forgiveness. The Lord never lets us sit in the despair too long. He's knows to well. If we do, it will overwhelm and eventually suck is back into a selfish pit, a pit self-mutilation. I could sit here, realizing my own ability to destroy and because of that, never try again. It could turn into: I'm not good enough, I will never be, I will only ever hurt, destroy and be terrible and I don't want to do that again. But that's just a cop out. That's just another form of selfishness, that's the form that says change is too hard, too uncomfortable and I may know what I did wrong, but I'm still not humble enough to change it.

Accepting forgiveness and asking to rejoice again, that is where the Lord looks at me asks "Okay, so you get this now. What are we going to do about it?" Sitting on the side of the road, I have to make a choice. Do I let His discipline become a marker for grace, or do I just sit in the wounding of it?

It's much harder to get up, starting walking again and know I will probably fail again in a short amount of time. Then I will have to get back up and do it again and again and again until the falls not so hard, with larger periods of time in between. I have to choose to let Him believe in me again. I have to believe that the reason He disciplined me wasn't to stay here, but to get up and try again.

I may have screwed up and hurt people I loved, I may have lost big and will feel that pain every time I think of him, or what I had, but I can't stay there. I have to sacrifice again, I have to sacrifice my fear, my pride, to take the next step. Knowing it will take forgiveness from Him, from those I love and from myself for the rest of my life to get it right. I have to love learn how to love those around me for them, not for myself and the only way I can do that, is by trying. I don't get to stay here, locked in my room, mourning forever. I have to tell myself to rejoice. I have to be thankful, be humble and move on. I have to hope knowing I will be disappointed again.

"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence, or take Your holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the oil of joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." Psalm 51:10-12