Episode #413: What Do You Say to God When You’ve Messed Up? – Praying Scripture

Hey, friends. Today we're using Psalm 51 to help us talk with God when we've messed up. If you struggle with shame like I have, or with feeling like you have to pay penance to God before He would want to spend time with you, which is the way that I grew up thinking about the Lord, oftentimes there are things we need to relearn about how to come to God in repentance.

I've talked about this in some of the other episodes too, but in its core form, to repent means to think again and choose differently. We get to practice that constantly as God transforms our loves and renews our hearts and our minds. So I'm gonna pray through Psalm 51 as a way to use these verses to talk with God when we can recognize we've made mistakes.

And the context for Psalm 51 is insightful for us, especially if you're familiar with the life of David. Because the passage in Scripture begins telling us this is a Psalm of David regarding the time Nathan the prophet came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. David didn't just commit adultery here. He had her husband killed. There's so much that David has to repent for, and we pick it up in verse 1 here as we get to see David's response to the Lord.

He says, "Have mercy on me, God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin."

David comes in recognition of his need for God, his dependence on God's mercy to withhold from David the bad he deserved because of not David's good behavior other times, not even that David felt really bad about it this time, but because of God's unfailing love and because of God's great compassion. That God is able to wash us clean, to purify us from our sin.

And so let's take this passage and turn it into a prayer that we can also bring to God ourselves.

God, I come to you and I'm aware that I need your mercy. I am dependent on your grace and mercy because I sin. And I come, God, thanking you that you offer forgiveness because of your unfailing love and your great compassion. That you are able to blot out the stain of my sins, to wash me clean from my guilt.

And so God, I come acknowledging the things that I'm guilty of before you. The sin that I can reflect on from today or this week. Lord, I ask you to purify me from this.

We're gonna skip down a few verses and pick it up again in Psalm 51 verses 10 through 12.

"Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me." I'm reading in the New Living Translation. "Do not banish me from your presence, and don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you."

Now, in the past, I would have read passages like this and been nervous about it. Oh, there's risk of God banishing me from his presence. There's risk of him taking away the Holy Spirit because of what I've done.

But that's not what this verse is saying, and that's not the character or nature of God or what He tells us will happen as we read His Word. He tells us that when we call on Him, He will answer us. He tells us that He longs to be gracious to us, that He offers forgiveness, and that He cleanses us from our sin. It's the reason Jesus came.

And so, God, as I read this passage, I thank you that you don't look to banish us from your presence. That it is not your character to take your Holy Spirit away from us.

God, we need you to clean our hearts. I need you to clean my heart. To create in me a clean heart, to renew within me a loyal spirit. That wants your will more than mine. That trusts your leading more than what I can come up with on my own. That depends on you. That seeks your presence. That listens to your Holy Spirit.

Lord, I ask that you restore to me the joy of your salvation and make me willing to obey you in places where I have resisted or I have been tempted elsewhere.

God, restore my love for you. Create in me a pure heart. Help me be loyal to follow you.

And so even as I pray this, I ask God to share with me areas of sin that I might not even know about yet, that I may repent of those too. To think again and choose differently. So that's a question I invite you to take to God today:

God, as you're cleaning my heart, what's something you want to bring to my attention that I can think again and choose differently about?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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