Create and Renew Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me (Psalm 51:10 KJV). One night, I went to bed with a lot of things on my mind. I was thinking about many issues I had been dealing with that day, and not only me but family members also. You mothers and wives will understand that, because there is just this uncontrollable urge and desire to fix everything for everyone, and it was just more than my mind could even process. As I do most nights, I went to sleep with a silent prayer on my lips and a desire in my heart to be all God wants me to be. I always pray for wisdom, guidance, and an awakening of my mind to things I may be dealing with inside myself such as a bad attitude (which is fairly easy most times to convince myself I have a right to own) or a spirit of criticism or misunderstanding about certain matters. And then, let’s just be honest, some things aren’t misunderstood, they are just plain and simply wrong, and that’s really difficult to deal with. I awoke the next morning with a familiar scripture playing over and over in my mind. I knew God had been working on me during the night and reminding me how to get through this process. So, I began to search out some meaning from this passage of scripture. Most of us are familiar with the story of David and his consuming lust for Bathsheba, who was the wife of one of the commanders of his armies. He was out on the rooftop one day and glanced over and saw her bathing on a rooftop a few houses over. He was consumed by her beauty and had her brought to his chambers. He committed sin by taking something which was 30 GRACE NOTES not his to take. This led to David hatching a plot of murder and deception to cover up his sin. But God knew, and David was caught and confronted by God (through the prophet Nathan) about his sin with Bathsheba. David repented, and in anguish cried out in Psalm 51. After asking God to deal with his sin, David realized God is righteous when He judges and so he again asked God to purge and wash him of his sin. He continued his plea by crying out: “Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation” (vv. 11-12 NKJV). David desperately prayed because he knew he had to have God’s help. So do we. Most of us don’t do anything as bad as David did, but what do the words renew and create mean? Create means “to make or bring into existence something new.” Need a new heart? Renew implies a “restoration of what had become faded or disintegrated so that it seems like new.” Ever felt like your spirit has been disintegrated or totally depleted and needs to be returned to its original state? So did David, and God did it for him just as He will do it for us. Perhaps this needs to become a daily prayer. For me, I think that’s the answer.
