“You do not desire a
sacrifice, or I would offer one.
You do not want a
burnt offering.
The sacrifice you
desire is a broken spirit.
You will not reject a
broken and repentant heart, O God.
Look with favor on
Zion and help her; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will be
pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit— with burnt offerings and
whole burnt offerings.
Then bulls will again
be sacrificed on your altar.”. Psalms 51:16-19
NLT
My wife is really smart.
She understands that I am often not motivated by her pointing out how
wrong I am about a something. I love her
more than anything, and the best way for her to get what she wants is not to
push for her way. Instead, she shares how
it affects her. She knows that a
psychological wall always comes up when the focus is on her wants, but it comes
down when she appears in need or pain.
Now some might view this as being manipulative, but this is the beauty
of her. She would never take advantage
of this liberty. Why? Because she loves me, and it’s her unconditional
love for me that ultimately breaks me. I
thought about this when thinking about God’s will for my life. By giving my life to Him, I agreed to serve
Him. In serving Him, it means that I at
times will be broken out of His love for me.
Sometimes, it is simply breaking for what makes his heart break (see the
Devotion ‘Heartbreaker’). But other
times, He just pushes me to where I am trapped with nowhere else to go, and I
have no other choice but to go to Him.
Committing to God means that we have to accept that He will
break us to build us up into the people that will follow Him. While reading these verses, I realized David
was in this place of utter submittal to God.
He recognized where he was wrong, but to admit guilt to God wasn’t
enough. He understood God wanted more
than just repentance. He wanted all of David that not only included a repentant
heart but also a broken one. Our heart fights
hard to do things its own way only to have God trap it in a corner with one of
two choices. The first is for it to fight with
all its might to keep its ways, sinful and not, and maintain its comfort. The other choice is for it to submit, which is what
God ultimately wants, and through submitting, a person is shown God’s
favor. We must always be careful in our repentance for sins. Repentance is
what God wants, but not as an act or as someone once told me a ‘check mark on
our check list.’ He wants us to feel the
weight and gravity of our guilt and sinful nature. It is this ‘brokenness’ that brings us closer
to the heart of God, and if we understand who David was, these verses underline why he is called a man after God’s heart.
Brokenness to God is a sign of strength. Not weakness.
We may focus on always being strong, but brokenness says that our source
of strength is God. He is our Alpha and
Omega. When we acknowledge this and
realize that we are neither the beginning nor end of our greatness, only then
will we truly be able to achieve all things because we are fitting into God’s
image. Not our own. What is it that God might be trying to break
you from? What new area of your life are
you willing to surrender to Him? My prayer
is that we embrace God’s love for us even when He corners us and we find
ourselves trapped. Amen.
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