God.
It's all the prayer I can manage. This morning my heart is clogged with resentment and
weariness and fear. I’m reliving painful moments and even inventing new ones
just to prolong the resentment. And I finding that I want to be frustrated and angry, not just with the present
situation, but with all my circumstances.
I’m fuming.
And then I read the devotional where the guy says he was irritated
with his wife because she got in the way
of his getting what he wanted. [1]
No fair, God. I was enjoying my pity party.
But you’re right. I want things. I want a lot of things, and to me
they seem like good things. Even necessary things. And when people or
circumstances get in the way of getting those things, I get grumpy.
Really, really grumpy.
Tripp writes about David, the author of Psalm 51. Some things had
gotten in his way, too. So he just removed them.
Trouble is, removing the people and circumstances wasn’t the
problem—it actually created much bigger problems, problems that were soon going
to heave his world apart.
The problem was David’s heart.
The problem was David wanted things. Things that were all about
him.
And David, realizing his problem—or rather, having his problem
pointed out to him (isn't that just how it is with us?)--was quick to run back to God. Quick to confess that his heart had gone amuck.
“Have
mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great
compassion blot out my transgressions” (v. 1).
His confession (you should really spend some time studying it; it's remarkable) isn’t the groveling of a slave before its master,
pitiful words meant to ward off wrath. It’s the homecoming of a prodigal. The
turning back of a son to his Father.
David humbles himself before the Father he trusts. He remembers
God’s “unfailing love” and “great compassion.” This is the God he loves. The
God he has spent hours and days with. The God who has rescued him over and
over, who pulled him from the mire, who raised him up and made him king. He has
sat at the feet of this God. He knows this God.
He trusts this God.
David turns from his own ways because he knows that God’s ways are better.
“True confession always results in living for something bigger”
(Tripp).
The question hangs there, looking at me.
Do I trust that His ways are bigger?
Do I believe God’s love is unfailing? That His mercy is better than
my agenda? That He will take care
of me better than I take care of myself?
Well,
that would require knowing God. Actually being with God. A lot.
“And so David, once obsessed with the temporary and impure
pleasures of his claustrophobic little kingdom of one, now becomes excited with
and engaged in the transcendent purposes of God’s big-sky kingdom” (Tripp).
Little
kingdom of one.
OK, God. Really, I get it.
I say that I want to go deeper, know You more, and yet my hands
keep clutching the familiar. Maybe those things I want and think I need are
exactly the things keeping me from knowing You.
In worshipping his kingdom of one, David feared losing God himself.
“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” (vv. 11-12).
Do I fear losing God more than I fear losing my desires?
Grant me a willing spirit. To sustain me when my desires rear up
like dragons and tell me to turn away. Make me willing to sacrifice my broken
spirit, my contrite heart (v. 17).
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways (v. 13). Then my lips
will open to speak Your praise (v. 15). Then You will delight (v. 19).
When it’s not all about me.
When I can look through the frustration and see You.
And I see that I do not know how to do this, not at all, and I go
back to David’s plea.
“Create
in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (v. 10).
You create. You renew. I only come and sit at Your feet.
Unclutch these hands. Help me raise these palms to You. If I cannot
release this little kingdom, take it away, again and again, until I finally
have You forever.
