A Repentant Heart

What is your Christian life like? Is you walk with God easy, a piece of cake? Or do you have days where despite your best effort you fall short? Do you have times when you thought you were beyond certain temptations in your walk with God and found yourself caught up in them again? In spite of our best efforts sometimes we don’t get it right, we stumble, we fall, we fail and one prime example of failure was one of my favorite biblical characters David.

I remember reading Psalm 51 and wondering what had happened to make David write such a heartfelt Psalm that completely exposed the innermost feelings of his heart and left him broken before God. It was then that I began to study the back story.

You can find the beginning of David’s story in 2 Samuel chapter 11. David had sinned and then tried to cover it up. David suffered many repercussions because of his selfish act, the most serious being the damage he did to his relationship with God because God was very displeased with his actions.

God sent the prophet Nathan to warn David. . It was only after the prophet Nathan spoke to David that David saw what damage his selfishness had done to his relationship with God. David was a king but his reaction to the rebuke of the prophet Nathan shows that he had a humble spirit. He was able to take the chastening of the Lord.

It’s hard to take rebuke at times. If a pastor, a boss or supervisor, a parent or friend rebukes us in some way we immediately become defensive or worse offended. We do not want our faults to be pointed out to us. However this was not the case with David.

 David’s heart was broken when he realized what he had done. It was out of his brokenness that David wrote Psalm 51

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. 10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

David’s sincerity, his passion, his pain is palpable as he pours out his heart before God. He came before God broken. He made no excuses he didn’t say the devil made him do it. He didn’t tell God about the kings who were committing worse sins than he did. David accepted responsibility for his actions. He had a repentant heart.

I hope I’m just a little like David. I hope I still go before God broken when I sin and not just as a formality. True repentance comes from the heart and not just the lips. It is a genuine commitment to change the sinful behavior and refrain from doing it again. When we sin it causes separation between us and our heavenly father and only true repentance can restore the relationship back to its original state.

Trusting Him,
~Bernadine~

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