Psalm 51:10: “Create in me a clean heart, O’God and renew a right spirit within me.”
Rabbi Cohen, an orthodox Jewish rabbi, showed me a special room in his house. It was filled with books, all books about God. Commentaries on the Torah, the Talmud, the Mishnah. I remember how he picked up one book and said: “You Christians, you read the Torah like any book outside this room. You must read the Torah with your heart and then you will understand the words God spoke through David.” That struck me: “The words God spoke through David.”
So I begin to read the Psalms as if it were my own heart cry. I come to Psalms 51:10 and examined my own heart, my own motives, and my own longings. I realized how far I was away from God and I longed for that “clean heart.“ I begin to feel David’s heart. David had committed sins that had separated him from the presence of God. It wasn’t the consequences of his sin that troubled him, he was willing to accept that. In fact the consequences for his sin according to Jewish law should have been the death penalty. Yet the prophet told him he would not die. In fact the prophet told him he was forgiven. But David had a broken heart, broken over the separation that his sin had caused between him and His God. You would think that having your sins forgiven, and the consequences of the sins removed would be enough. Maybe for many of us it is enough. “Well my sins are forgiven and I’m on my way to heaven, praise alleluia.” But for David it still left him with a broken heart.
The Talmud tells a story which may explain David’s broken heart. There was a King who had a son that he loved very dearly. Whenever the son needed anything, he would come to his father and ask and the father would willingly grant it. However, the son soon became disobedient to the father. The father tried to correct him but the disobedience continued. Finally the King called a servant and commanded him: “Whenever my son needs anything let him ask you and you must give to him generously.” The servant asked: “But why give him anything if he is disobedient?” The king, the father replied: “I love my son, I do want him to be in need, however, I can not look upon him in his disobedience so he can not come to me with his request, so I will grant his request through you so I do not have to look upon him.”
Maybe for some of use it is enough that God still answers prayers, still provides for us. But for David that was almost irrelevant. He longed to feel the presence of God, he ached for those times when he and God shared their hearts while he was just a shepherd boy. He knew his heart was not right with God. He wasn’t in this relationship for a paycheck, he just wanted things to be ok between him and God.
As I read this passage I began to beg God for a clean heart. Although I knew the score between him and I was settled 2,000 years on a cross and that He is my Heavenly Father, I also knew there were areas of disobedience in my heart that prevent me from enjoying that relationship with Him. I can’t change the attitudes of my heart, so like David, I had to plead with God to change it for me.
David’s heart was broken because the God that he so loved, could not look upon him. Thus, he cried out: “Lev tahor bara’ ti” Create a pure heart for me. David tried mightily to make things right with his God. But he finally realized that his only hope was for God to bara (create, form out of nothing) a pure heart. Not only that but to renew a right spirit. The Hebrew words are chadesh (restore) and nakon (focus) my spirit within me. David is not only asking for a new heart but a restored spirit and a spirit that is focused on God and not the things of this world that would lead him into disobedience.
My dad told me how, as a boy living on a farm, he had trapped a raccoon. He wanted to keep it as a pet and built a cage for it. However, old coonie would pace back and forth in that cage, shake it, rattle it and then sometimes just hang on the cage looking out with those sorrowful eyes as if to say, “Please let me go.” After a few days my dad could not take it anymore and he opened the door of the cage. Coonie was free to go. A strange thing, even though the door was open, and coonie wanted out, he did not leave. Grandpa said coonie just could not believe he was free and stayed in his cage because he had become comfortable with what he knew. It took grandpa and my father to tip the cage and dump him out. Once out coonie took off running.
I prayed for a “clean heart.” Jesus died so He could create a clean heart. Yet, I felt no different. I still felt troubled. So I went back to David’s heart and found that he also felt the same way, but he asked God to open his lips and then his mouth will speak forth praise. God opened my lips but my mouth was not speaking forth the praise. So God tipped the cage and I stepped behind my “Look Glass” and was greeted by a smiling letter “Pe.” Pe waved to me shouting “Come, Come, I am your Pe.” My Pe? What do I want with a Pe? Then I remembered, just before stepping behind the “Looking Glass” I noticed the Hebrew word for mouth in Psalms 51:10 was “Pe.” “Ok, Pe” I said rather irritated. “Why are you not speaking out the praise?”
Pe grabbed my hand and took me to Mt Sinai where I saw a burning bush. I saw Moses before the burning bush kneeling and saying: “I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” God responded: “I will be your mouth (Pe) and teach you what to say.” Pe turned and winked at me and said: “If your heart wishes to praise God, God has instructed me as to what to say. Just step through that cage door and let me do the work.” So I opened my mouth (Pe) and Pe took it from there.
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