Me? A woman after God's own heart?

Did you know that David, as in “David and Bathsheba,” is called a man after God’s own heart? I had a hard time grabbing on to this truth. It seemed to me he could be called “the one who after a season of sin was forgiven,” or “a man who after a huge mess made some better choices.”

But see two places where God uses the same phrase to forever characterize David: 

“But now your [speaking to King Saul] kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD's command." (1 Samuel 13:14) 

After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: “I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.” (Acts 13:22) 

How does a man who went all the way to rock bottom following his own heart become known as a man after God’s own heart? 

God had the final word over David’s story. What's amazing is that God declared the words in 1 Samuel 13:14 before He had even anointed David as king! God knew that David's heart would ultimately be His completely. Sure, there were other messes, slip ups, and sins he would have to confess, but God knew His chosen and anointed one would repent and follow the path of righteousness. God knew the whole story.

God had a plan for impacting the world which saw far beyond one night of sexual sin. God could redeem that night. God by His grace could redeem them and their story. And that redeemed story was woven into God’s greatest plan of redemption—the gift of His own Son Jesus. (See Matt. 1:6)

Sometimes we can get so stuck in one section of our story that we forget God knows the end. We think our hearts have determined a course for us that is irrevocable. We have gone down the wrong path, and there is little hope for us now. We'll just try harder and hope to look a bit better, but deep down we wonder if God can ever make us anything more or new or different than we are. Honestly, because we know good Christian phrases, we'll even say “He makes all things new,” or “He's the God of second chances.” But it’s hard to imagine that our stories could be redeemed like David’s was. What’s more, we wonder if we can we really be called “women after God's own heart” after our own hearts have been led astray. 

What does it mean to be “after God’s own heart”?

After God's heart means desiring God, pursuing God, depending on God, loyal to God, loving what He loves, and finding full satisfaction in Him.

Look at how Psalm 73:25-26 expresses this.

As you read it, consider where our desires are for God and where our hearts are after God's. 

What do these verses say to you about God? About yourself? 

The desires of our hearts and bodies can fail and make a mess; and they surely won't sustain us. But when God is the focus of our hope and desires, He will bring strength to our hearts and satisfaction that is full and ongoing, forever. That's a promise. 

Psalm 37:4 is another of God’s promises through the pen of David. Look at this verse below.

What is your calling here?
What is God's promise?
Who is at the center of this verse?

To be after God's heart, we have to delight in our relationship with Him. When we do, He promises to put His desires in our hearts. This means we will have such a close relationship that His desires will be our hearts' desires. Our hearts will be after His heart, and He will make sure those desires are satisfied in Him and through Him. He will be enough.

(That’s not a lame Christian way of settling for a vanilla kind of life that you’re supposed to think is good, because that’s the holier mindset. If that’s our thought, we don’t know the Bible. Our God is a God of adventure, unpredictable turns, fire, wind, parting waters, starting storms, shaking the earth, sailing the seas. He is a God of touching the untouchable, loving the discarded, vast compassion, unquenchable love, uncontainable grace, unending faithfulness, unimaginable futures. And in all that, He is at the center and He is enough.)

Being after God’s heart, David was able to say, “If I only have God then I will be strong, deeply satisfied, fulfilled, content, never alone, and the king that I am supposed to be.” Deep dissatisfaction and lust were gone (click for more on David's heart issue with lust), and David delighted himself in the LORD, living (and returning again and again to) the truth that nothing this earth could hold would satisfy his heart more than God Himself. 

So, can you be a woman after God’s own heart? The fact that you’re on this journey to living beyond your past says that you are pursuing His heart. Keep taking steps; this is part of a life long journey of delighting in Him. Keep depending on Him and He’ll take you even further on a journey that includes heights of love, satisfaction, and intimately knowing Him. Yes, a woman after God's own heart.

Just another seed of my faith,
Ginny

From Wading to Washed - Psalm 51

I’ve listened to a few graduations speeches again this year, and one leader’s theme was regret. He impressed upon students embarking on a new journey to live a life without regret. He eloquently shared that a synonym of regret was repentance.

That hit my filter. Regret and repentance are not the same. Regret is to look back and wish that things had been different, that you would have made another choice, seized a different opportunity. Regret marks your memory with a sad kind of wonder—“if only I’d…”

As we explored in our last step together, repentance is not wishing things had been different, it’s a change in our god that results in a change in our behavior.

I come back to this again and again (because daily I need it and) because wading in the truth about sin, confession, forgiveness, and repentance is where I began to understand what it means to be washed clean, and it’s where God invited me to leave my past behind and walk with Him beyond it. 

Like Naaman in the Old Testament, covered in rot from the inside out, it seemed fairly simple—like dipping in a river. Confession, forgiveness, repentance. Simple, with profound effects. And as his story goes, I also wasn’t told to stay “in the river” forever examining and wallowing in what was washed off. I came out clean, new, and got to live a new life!

In this final step of exploring confession and repentance with David, I turn again to Psalm 51. It captures the authenticity of his turn away from the god of “himself and his desires” and towards God. It is David’s scripture prayer of confession and repentance.

This psalm is where I come again and again when I’ve sinned. This psalm did and continues to do a washing, healing work in me when I have fallen flat choosing myself and my desires over God and His ways for me. 

Grab a Bible and read Psalm 51. Let it be your prayer too. 

This psalm shows his radical heart shift towards God. In repenting, or changing his god, he believed and declared the following truths: 

God is the only One Who can cleanse us. (v. 1-2, 7, 9)
David had come to the end of himself. He couldn't be God, he couldn’t cover anything or fix anything. He was powerless to save himself. God was the only One Who could offer mercy, Who could blot out transgressions, Who could wash him and make him permanently clean. 

God is the only One Who is holy and right. (v. 3-4, 8)
There was no more avoiding sin with more sin or justifying his actions in his mind or blaming others. As he confessed he put God in the right place: holy and righteous upon His throne, right in what He said, right in how He judged, right to bring feelings of being crushed and laid low.

God is the only One Who can do something new here. (v. 6, 8, 10, 12, 15)
In these verses, everything David asked or desired had to come from God. The newness he needed, the restoring and transforming down into the depths of who he was could only come from God. 

God is the God Who is here. (v. 11, 16-17)
David had ignored God, set himself on the throne of his life, and quenched the Spirit. But with repentance came a single desire to be with God. David ended his prayer confident that as he offered God his broken, humbled heart, God would fully restore him and be near him. 

Through confession and repentance, David showed a change in his god, and a change in his life followed. David would have a life beyond the sin. Life beyond his confession. Life beyond the consequences. Life beyond his past. He would have a full life of following God. 

Which verses or phrases in Psalm 51 most deeply resonate with you? Personalize them and share them as your own prayer to the Lord. (To explore a bit more on this Psalm, I’ve shared about feeling forgiven along our journey in David’s story as well.) 

Draw near to Him believing He doesn’t change; He is David’s God and your God. Praise Him that what He did for David, He can do for you. Believe Him for it! 

Just another seed of my faith,
Ginny

11 years ago today--about losing my mom, discovering hope

It was a Sunday that we first sang "Blessed Be Your Name" at church. I recall, being serious about praise that comes out of my mouth, that I wasn't sure I could identify with the words, "Blessed be Your Name, on the road marked with suffering, though there's pain in the offering, Blessed be Your Name." How do you actually sing that and mean it? In the midst of praise, I wondered.

I last saw her on a Monday.

My final memory of her is her dropping me off at our apartment and helping me carry our son in his baby carrier into the doorway. I hugged her and can remember what she was wearing as I watched her walk away and get into the car.

It was a Wednesday, at 6 am. My dad called me to tell me that my mom had died. That was eleven years ago today.

In the days and weeks afterwards, my dad began sorting through everything that was my mom's. He came across journals of hers and gave them to me and my sisters. "What a treasure!" And I opened the gift of my mother's spiritual journey, in her own handwriting. 

The year in the date of the first entry I dared peer into pierced my heart. I knew it. Awesome, God. I got all the journals from the season where I was wandering down the path of heart led astray. I could barely read her prayers. She cried out to God for me in the midst of her own hurt, helplessness, and utter fear for me. She poured out her heart like water before the Lord on behalf of a rebellious, wayward child. And it broke me. I couldn't handle reading firsthand how much she hurt, how bewildered she was, how she clung to the Only One Who could do something--anything.

Honestly, I have a box with her name on it today, with many pictures, things she made me, things I made her, and those journals--which I have not fully read. I can't.

But I am certain of this, the prayers of my mom were part of the power in places both she and I could not see that drew me to Jesus. Her cries became my freedom. What she pleaded for me was help and healing. And God helped, He saved, He healed, and He made me whole.

On the anniversary of her Glory Day, I want to shout hope!
If you are journeying to live beyond your past, someone prayed for you and is praying for you. And if you think you have no one, Scripture tells us you have Someone Who lives to stand in that in-between place--between heaven and earth, now and later, this step and the next--who is always talking to God about you and for you, to bring His beautiful will from heaven where it's done, to your life, where it will be done. His Name is Jesus and He is Hope.

If you are praying for a friend or a child who is rebellious, wayward, living for their desires and moving farther and farther from God, don't give up. Don't stop. When you don't see results, when nothing changes, when help hasn't come, when the hurt still flows, use the word YET. When the sun rises again tomorrow morning, it means the story is not finished yet. God is not done, and today, even today may be the day of her deliverance. So hang on to Hope.

In deep honor of my mother today...
Bless His Name. There are roads marked with suffering, there is pain in the offering--for the one who prays. Yet in His Name we have Hope.
Bless His Name, you who finally sees the roads trod on your behalf, the selfless offerings poured out before the Lord, for your redemption, your story, your life beyond the mess. For it is there you were given Hope, and the grace to actually bless His Name.

Blessing His Name today for her, her life, her prayers, the life I was given, and the hope of His glorious will still to come,

Ginny

Can I just say "I'm sorry" about sin?

What happens when we come face to face with our sin?

Do we shrink away? Do we turn away? Do we hide?
Do we offer excuses? Do we place blame? Do we justify ourselves?
Do we bargain? Do we really commit this time to try harder?
Do we tend to our own wounds, touch up our exposed selves, re-frame our broken pieces?
Do we just say we’re sorry?

Can we just say we’re sorry and have it be ok?

When confronted with our sin, God’s heart is for us to confess and repent. Is that the same as saying “I’m sorry”?

If you journey with me, you know we've been tracking with David’s story in 2 Samuel 11-12. When his sin and heart were exposed...

“David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the LORD.’ Nathan replied, ‘The LORD has taken away your sin.’” (2 Samuel 12:13)

Was it merely words? Did he just say he was sorry, and that's it? Presto change-o, everything was ok?

Read 1 John 1:8-10.

What does this say about confessing sin? What does it say if we deny that we have sin?

Confessing is coming to God and declaring openly to God what you have done, not denying anything but instead agreeing with Him fully, that what you've done, said, or thought was against Him and His ways.

So are these verses about being saved or confessing our sins on a Tuesday? Yes.

If you have not trusted Christ as your Savior, this is the Good News! Tell God about your sin and be washed clean!

If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, consider the words of Jennifer Kennedy Dean. “Jesus knew [forgiveness] would be finished at the Cross…It is the confessing and turning from a sin that brings the Father’s forgiveness into your experience.”  (Set Apart)

Kevin DeYoung explains confession this way: “The cleansing [when we confess], mind you, is not like the expunging of a guilty record before the judge. That’s already been accomplished. This cleansing is more like the scraping of barnacles off the hull of a ship so it can move freely again. We need confession of sin before God like a child needs to own up to her mistakes before Mom and Dad, not to earn God’s love, but to rest in it and know it more fully…1 John 1:9, then, is not just about getting saved. It’s also about living as a saved person and enjoying it.”

Confession.

So what actually took place when David said “I have sinned against the LORD”?

Look closer at two truths with me.

David had a change in his heart.
David’s confession was not just “I've sinned,” or, “I am sorry I got caught.” The words “against the LORD” are key. David realized that all his sin, everything that he had done as his heart was led astray, all of it, was against God. Those words reveal that his heart that was once led astray and calloused was now broken. At that moment he was turning back to God, His ways, and their relationship.

David had a change in his god.
Pastor and leader Jeff Vanderstelt has a profound definition for repentance.

Repentance isn't a change of behavior.
Repentance is a change of our god which will lead to a change of behavior.

David didn't say, “I'm sorry, I won't do that anymore. I am going to do all these things better and different.” Or, “Well I can't fix this, but I did try to make this right.” David didn't change his behavior first. He changed his god.

Who had his god been? Who had he followed and worshiped? Who had he lived for?
Himself, his wants, his needs, his desires, his ability to cover up, his comfort. Himself.

Repentance meant that David would turn away from the god of himself and his desires and turn towards the LORD.

David confessed his sin. The LORD was faithful and just to forgive David of his sins and cleanse him from all unrighteousness. David’s story after this moment was a journey with God beyond this sin, and living in fellowship (deep, active, connected relationship) with God.

When cracks in our hard exteriors are pierced in a moment by light, and what we've done is exposed?
When truth finally penetrates what feels like a layer of tar that seems to coat our hearts and souls, causing feeling in a place once anesthetized?

I’m sorry...?

If those words usher you into God's heart for you to fully

Confess. Repent.

then surely, humbly, use them.

Just another seed of my faith,
Ginny

Where God is when I sin

When I was in school, along with "Hypercolor" t-shirts there was a trend with posters, where hidden in the picture made of minute shapes was a 3-D image. The bright pink and blue contrasts looked like “snow” on a TV with an interrupted signal, but the cool kids would exclaim with astonishment when they saw the image, and the really cool kids could pick it out quickly.

I could never see those stupid 3-D images. All I ever saw was pink and blue snow. So I faked it. I’d agree with the group of kids, and even roll my eyes in slight annoyance at other kids who couldn't see what clearly everyone else could see. 

I had no idea what I was looking at. 

I think sometimes our picture of God feels like a 3-D illusion poster. Somehow people around us seem to see something about Him, and at times we’ll even fake it, but fact is, we've never seen God that way. 

This was a place of vulnerability for me when it came to where God was and how God saw me when I sinned, repeatedly chose sin, or when I was a mess, laying in a heap at the end of the path of heart led astray. 

What have you heard about where He is and how He feels when we've sinned or we've gotten stuck at the bottom of a pit? 

Maybe it’s radical, wide grace and love, and you've just never seen Him that way.
Maybe it’s discipline (but that seems like a Christian word for punishment and total disapproval).
Maybe it’s strong words that scare you, because they hint at a picture that God will at some point just be done with repeat offenders.
Maybe you've never heard and so you've created your own picture. 

When we aren't sure where God is or how He feels when we have sinned, our picture is snow. 

But, come see. See for yourself. 

David, in the midst of sin--having lusted, had sex with another man’s wife, lied, manipulated, lived in total hypocrisy, murdered, created a home at the end of the path of heart led astray, with a totally calloused heart--thought he had it all covered. He had settled in to a life built around sin. It seems in this part of his story (2 Sam. 11) God is nowhere to be found. The chapter closes with a clue for us.

“But the thing David did displeased the LORD.” (2 Sam. 11:27)

Examine those words. What does that verse say about God, where He is, and how He feels about David?

Careful now. Really look.

God was there seeing David’s life, choices, and heart. God knew David’s sin and it displeased our holy God. 
     God had not left or ignored David.
          God also knew David, and who he really was. And He loved him.

Where do we see that? 

In 2 Samuel 12, God didn't sit feeling displeased, He didn't withdraw from David, He moved towards David.

Rich in mercy, abounding in love, He didn't ignore sin or send immediate judgment or punishment; He sent an opportunity to repent. This is the nature of the LORD.

And so, He sent His “mouthpiece,” Nathan. Nathan came to David at rock bottom, at the end of heart led astray, and boldly spoke truth to him, exposing David’s heart and sin. God’s heart was for David to confess and repent.

(How has God spoken truth into your life, shedding light on your sin, and pointing you to a relationship with Him? What were those words and how did you react to His message? Did you see this as God moving towards you to reach you?)

We see this truth played out in the Gospel. When we were at our worst, total enemies of God, a heap of mess far from God, repeat offenders--God moved towards us. He sent His only Son, Who put on flesh and made His home among us. This time, He didn't send a prophet, He came full of grace and truth, to show us Who He is, who we are, and how He feels about us. Sin displeases Him because He is holy, and He loves us. He showed His love by giving His perfect life in our place on the cruel cross, taking on our sin. He conquered our sin with His own death. God brought Him back to life, showing off His glory, and giving us a picture of what He will do with every sinner who trusts Christ as their Rescuer—give them new life! The Good News is because of Jesus Christ, God gives us an opportunity to turn to Him and follow Him. 

Want to see clearly where God is and how He feels when we sin? Throughout His whole Story, including David’s story, we see again and again--when we sin God is near, seeing everything, knowing who we are, and loving us. He moves towards us, desiring that we confess our sin and turn to Him. 

Confess. Repent. (That's what we'll explore next!)

Just another seed of my faith,
Ginny

Lust, hypocrisy, calloused hearts...Avalanche

I believe that any sin is a tangle. 
   Like a “rats” nest in your hair. It’s not a single strand that makes a mess. It’s one looped in another twisted with another snarled with those until it’s painful to resolve. 
   Like a traffic jam. It’s not a single car. It’s the whole highway crawling along as we finally get a glimpse of the wreck that caused this whole mess.

Like an avalanche. It’s not a snowball, but rather a cracking sheet of immense snow that pitches forward roaring down a mountain, consuming everything in its path, growing greater by the second, until it settles at the bottom, having buried everything and everyone. 

Read 2 Samuel 11 like a story and you see as David’s heart was led astray over time, his sin grew, like an avalanche, piling sin on top of more sin, cover up over cover up, all the way to the bottom.

Because he was a king and his story seems so specific (whoa, I haven’t murdered anyone), if we aren’t careful, we put him in some Bible story and never examine if his path of heart led astray, including lust, hypocrisy, and callousness, could very well be like ours.  

Lust
Lust is not a gender specific issue, just for men. (Frankly, it’s not just a sexual issue.) Consider an author’s stark words that offer deeper understanding of lust. 

Have you experienced this?

David’s story echoes in those words. What was the thought in his mind and heart when he saw her? “If he just had her then he’d be…” Lust enslaved him. He couldn’t conceive of being content without her and so he sent for her and had sex with her. Then it owned him.

Hypocrisy
When Bathsheba sent word that she was pregnant, he scrambled to cover up his sin and make himself look righteous. And he acted like a king would…

royal orders

royal summons to ask royal questions

royal dinners

royally stamped execution orders

royal regards for the loss of a soldier

royal wedding bells.

In truth, David engaged in 

deceit

hypocrisy

tempting others to abandon integrity

treachery

and murder

--all to cover up his initial sin.

Deceit and hypocrisy were two sins I relied on as I struggled with sexual sin. My world revolved around lying to keep from being exposed and keeping consequences to a minimum. 

Hypocrisy seemed an easy game for a while: go to church, answer the right questions, play the part of the good Christian girl. But as my sin grew and grew, my hurting heart became calloused. I still tried to cover sin but I also shrouded my soul in bitterness and arrogance--“This is just who I am, and I’m fine with it!” 

I lied to others and I tried to lie to myself. Underneath the callous was the painful truth—I was not “fine with it.”

Callousness
Coupled with David's hypocrisy was a callousness that grew as his sin multiplied: ignoring Bathsheba’s husband’s integrity, skillfully trying to get him to abandon that integrity, and when he wasn’t successful at that David drafted a military order (carried back to battle by Uriah himself) that ensured Uriah’s death.

Thick layers of sin and cover-up produced David’s response to the news of Uriah’s demise. “You win some, you lose some.”

No guilt. No grief. Just a quenched Spirit. 

Quench, stifle, extinguish, put out--in essence, we can become so calloused to the Spirit that we no longer even feel the conviction and call to repentance anymore. (1 Thess. 5:19) 

Lust, cover-up, hypocrisy and callousness.

Those truths made me search for God in the midst of that avalanche—David’s and mine.Where was He? Had He turned His back, or worse yet, was He done with David? 

Strangely enough He’s found in a solitary statement that clinches the end of the chapter. 

“But the thing David did displeased the LORD.”

That means God was seeing David, knowing what David was doing. God was not the one who had changed or departed. David was. It was David’s heart that was led astray. God was where He had always been, and He was Who He has always been. 

LORD. I AM. Keeper of all the promises His people fail to keep. Holder of the past, present and future even when His people sin and forget. God was remembering who David really was, even when David chose to live in calloused forgetfulness. He was keeping His promise to him, and Abraham, and even you, that a Messiah would come through David, even when God’s covenant was dim in his lustful heart. 

Yes, David had practically abandoned everything for his sin. 
Yes, God was displeased, but not done. God’s story wasn’t finished.
For David, or for us.

The only place where God was done was at the cross where our lusts, sexual sins, hypocrisies and callousness were paid for. It was that place where what we wanted to cover-up, Jesus actually covered. He covered us in His blood. He covered us in His righteousness. He covered us with His record. 

“It is finished.” (Jn. 19:30) 

Done. That’s the Gospel. 

When our sin comes crashing down, the Gospel finds us buried under the weight of it all, with God coming to our rescue. 

How will we respond?

Just another seed of my faith,
Ginny

Experiencing Forgiveness - How I feel forgiven

I think about how I could encourage you this week, and it’s like standing in a candy store, trying to choose something I know you’d love. It’s all incredible, but what’s the sweetest thing I could give you?

During Easter weekend, I want to give you the glorious truth about His forgiveness.

I have found that the longer we walk in a relationship with God and the more God reveals about Who He is, the greater our desire becomes to know and understand forgiveness. When you feel this way, consider these truths:

You stand forgiven.

That work was done on the cross. God tells us that “in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” (Ephesians 1:7)

 

This is just a slice of an incredible Psalm (Ps. 103) that tells us that God’s love is immeasurable and infinite, and so is the distance He puts between us and our sins. God does not have a trash bucket full of our sins sitting behind His throne that He pulls out when we come to Him, picking up pieces of our trash and messes, showing them to us again, with a stern look of disapproval. No, He throws our sin infinitely away from us, seeing us only through the precious blood of His Son, Jesus. You stand…

Fully forgiven.

What’s more, “Out of sheer generosity He puts us in right standing with Himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where He always wanted us to be. And He did it by means of Jesus Christ.” (Romans 3:24, MSG) If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you are justified freely--you have Christ’s record of having always obeyed.

What astonishing, freeing truths!

Now I could agree with all of that in my head, and even in my heart, but I’ll let you in on something, I haven’t always felt forgiven. The truth has been told, but the truth be lived or the truth be felt, I have believed that Biblically, God would forgive me. The Bible says in the verses above that God forgives sin because of Jesus’ death on the cross. He does forgive, He will forgive. Absolutely. But I didn't know how He felt about it, and therefore,

I didn't know how to feel forgiven.

I learned something in Psalm 51, a bedrock of my journey to living beyond my past—my journey to wholeness, and it has helped me understand how God feels about forgiving me.

Psalm 51:1-2

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.

When we long to be forgiven, to tell God about our sin, get it out in the open, and be set free from it, we come to Him with words that sound a lot like

Have mercy on me, O God,

But how does He have mercy? Or why would He?

According to a contract that says He does? According to how hard I ask or how bad I feel? According to how far I've already come in trying to fix my mess?

No.

We know we can ask for mercy and that He will have mercy on us

according to Your unfailing love;

according to Your great compassion

Look at the order of the truths in verses 1-2. His unfailing love precedes forgiveness. His great compassion comes before our confession has ever left our lips. It’s because of these things that He moves to forgive us.

David called and relied upon God’s unchanging character. Consider that your character is known because of who you are and what you do. God set the rules for love and love is always demonstrative. Compassion is sympathy that’s moved to action. Love shows, compassion shows. God is unfailing, faithful love and great, abundant compassion. It is His very nature of love and compassion that is demonstrated in forgiveness.

I think sometimes I don’t feel forgiveness because I don’t believe He loves me without failing when I've failed, and that He has great compassion that He pours out on me when I've screwed up…again. Because I have not been unchanging, because I have wavered, I wonder if God’s love or sympathy for me has changed or run out. Therefore, I just call on and rely on the “have mercy on me” and “wash this away” parts, hoping that part of the gospel still stands, even if God’s “feelings” towards me have changed.

The problem with my thinking is love and compassion aren't God’s feelings, they are His unchanging character. They are Him. When I believe Him, when I call on His unchanging character, then I will begin to fully experience—that’s see, know, and feel—His forgiveness.

blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity

and cleanse me from my sin.

And it is full forgiveness. The individual words here all have special meanings. He wanted his rebellion, his premeditated sin to be wiped out, obliterated. He wanted his personal perversity, moral evil, depravity, guilt and fault to be intensively, intentionally, thoroughly, exceedingly washed away. He wanted God to cleanse him physically, ceremonially, and morally from his condition of sin and his habitual offense and its penalty.

His cry was deep and thorough. He wanted nothing more to do with sin and needed what only God can give: cleansing.

And that’s exactly what God did for him.

And what God does for us,

according to His unfailing love and great compassion for us.

Along the way I learned these truths (and other rich, freeing truths in Psalm 51—you should explore it!), but I learned it’s more than knowing truth. It’s believing and therefore, living truth. It took time and experiences living the truth that God not only forgives me but that He loves me and has compassion on me and that’s why and how He forgives me. It’s Him--His love and compassion shown through Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection--that I can run to, rest in, and rely on when I need to confess my sins—trusting I am fully forgiven in Him, and again, I am forgiven for this that I've confessed. And slowly but surely I began to believe and live in His love, His compassion, and I began to feel what I am: fully forgiven.

Just another seed of my faith,

Ginny