Psalm 51: 10-17
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
When I mess up, I want to know how to fix it quickly. I don’t like being wrong and I especially don’t like dwelling in my wrongness. It’s tempting to view my life as a scorecard. Did all the laundry: 5 points. Didn’t yell at the kids: 100 points. Did yell at the kids: negative 500 points. If I’m not careful I can go through my day tallying up how I’m doing.
“How are you today?”
“Fine, I’m up 60 points from yesterday.”
I have a point system in faith too. When I mess up I want to know what I have to do to accrue back the points I’ve just lost. I want to know how many bulls to offer at the sacrificial altar. The problem is, God’s not keeping track of the points and he doesn’t want a trite action to make up for a selfish heart.
My kids have gotten into the habit of learning how to get out of trouble as quickly as possible. This means they will often say they are sorry without even knowing what they are supposed to be sorry for. Some days it feels easier to let them off the hook.
“Thank you for your sacrificial sorry. Now don’t do it again.”
The problem is they aren’t sorry. At least not for the right reasons. Are they sorry they are in trouble? YES. Do they feel sorry for whatever action got them in trouble? Nobody knows.
When I clean my house it takes hours. There is a method. I take a top down approach, attending to the counters and windows first and then finishing at the floor. Once I’ve finished and the house is to my satisfaction I relax to enjoy the spoils of my work. The thing I dislike most about cleaning my house? Watching it get dirty again. I notice the small specs on the ground immediately. I see a ring mark on the counter from someone’s glass. I can spot the imperfections from a mile away. The same goes for a clean heart. When our heart is clean it allows us to see the bits of dirt that start sneaking in. When our heart is clean we don’t want to throw a quick sacrifice at the problem, we want to scrub at the dirt. We want to get out the vacuum and properly remove it.
God sees through the quick fixes. He knows we are uncomfortable being wrong and that we just want to seek comfort over contrition. The goal is not to boost our points or offer the lamb for our blunders. Our goal is to spot the dust as it attempts to settle in our heart and do the work that it requires to be removed.
Questions:
Do you keep a scorecard of your day?
What does a clean heart mean to you?
How do you get a clean heart?
