Monday's Blessing
Psalm 51:10
"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit withing me."
Nothing will cut the umbilical cord like the day your child graduates from high school. All of a sudden they are swarmed with new adventures rarely taking your heading advice as they do so. It is during this time it can be a bit challenging as parents as we learn to maneuver a new road ourselves - being parents to young adults.
Now begins the expressway of continued thwarts of forgiveness. We step on toes; we intervene all in the blatant confession of true faith! After all we we've been down that road, we are trying save them from the chains that once kept us bound. But our pleas go unnoticed as we are relentlessly told to mind our own business in a new founded way. What happened to these little beings that once worshiped the ground we walked on?
King David once stopped worshiping the ground God walked on, too. He was attracted to Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, and had gotten her pregnant. David had Uriah sent to the battlefront where he would be killed so he could be with his wife always. He didn't think anyone knew his dastardly dead, but God did. He reprimanded him saying:
Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to bey your own. (2 Samuel 12:9-10)
David had no personal remorse until God displayed his misfortune. After all there was much pain that had a ripple effect from David's sin - Uriah's death, Bathsheba's grief, the death of and unborn child, and of course the adulterous union. But there is one good thing that became it was Davids true repentance: "I have sinned against the Lord." (2 Samuel 12:13)
We, too, must follow the Lord's advice and allow our children to fall. God is often back there trying to intervene saying, "Say your piece and move on." But we say it again and again in hopes it will truly sink in this time causing the relationship of trust to fray and unravel. We must realize that when they do fall, God will pick them up, dust them off, just as we did when they first began to walk. Our role has suddenly changed to a parent-guide now just as God mentors us.
Practice the model of true confession when you need to in David's form:
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
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 joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.
Psalm 51:10
"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit withing me."
Nothing will cut the umbilical cord like the day your child graduates from high school. All of a sudden they are swarmed with new adventures rarely taking your heading advice as they do so. It is during this time it can be a bit challenging as parents as we learn to maneuver a new road ourselves - being parents to young adults.
Now begins the expressway of continued thwarts of forgiveness. We step on toes; we intervene all in the blatant confession of true faith! After all we we've been down that road, we are trying save them from the chains that once kept us bound. But our pleas go unnoticed as we are relentlessly told to mind our own business in a new founded way. What happened to these little beings that once worshiped the ground we walked on?
King David once stopped worshiping the ground God walked on, too. He was attracted to Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, and had gotten her pregnant. David had Uriah sent to the battlefront where he would be killed so he could be with his wife always. He didn't think anyone knew his dastardly dead, but God did. He reprimanded him saying:
Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to bey your own. (2 Samuel 12:9-10)
David had no personal remorse until God displayed his misfortune. After all there was much pain that had a ripple effect from David's sin - Uriah's death, Bathsheba's grief, the death of and unborn child, and of course the adulterous union. But there is one good thing that became it was Davids true repentance: "I have sinned against the Lord." (2 Samuel 12:13)
We, too, must follow the Lord's advice and allow our children to fall. God is often back there trying to intervene saying, "Say your piece and move on." But we say it again and again in hopes it will truly sink in this time causing the relationship of trust to fray and unravel. We must realize that when they do fall, God will pick them up, dust them off, just as we did when they first began to walk. Our role has suddenly changed to a parent-guide now just as God mentors us.
Practice the model of true confession when you need to in David's form:
- He recognized his sin and its effect.
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
- He asked God to forgive him and cleanse his heart.
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
- He asked God to restore him.
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
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 joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.
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