Create in me a clean heart oh Lord ....

Psalm 51:10 NLT Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.


This week the author looks at David’s propensity for sexual compromise. He gives us a rather graphic picture of a “dirty” heart. While it would be easy enough to concentrate on the sexual immorality of David’s sin, I see this from a bit different perspective.

When I first read this week’s lesson, I thought, “Oh no. Lord, how do I deal with this?” Then I received a vision, and I smiled, because of what the Lord reminded me.

Just before Julia and I were married I had a good friend who spent time in combat in Vietnam. After he returned home he was looking for work. A new donut store opened in town and they hired Dale. He was so happy because Dale LOVED donuts. The first day on the job, they told him he could eat as many as he wanted as often as he wanted. They didn’t care. He was in heaven on his first day at the job. Then I saw him barely a week later and asked him how the job was going. He told me he never wanted to see a donut again. He did eat all he wanted and he got so tired of donuts, he quit the job.

I tell you this because of the parallel I see with David. Second Samuel 12 tells of Nathan’s confrontation with David. Nathan give this message to David from the Lord in verse 8:

I gave you your master’s house, and put your master’s wives into your arms. I also gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all that somehow seems insignificant, I would have given you so much more as well!

This amazing verse seems very clear to me. God gave David everything he could want (including women) and if he needed more, the clear indication is all he had to do was ask. This is the point I want to look at. David could have had all the women he wanted, when he wanted them. What more could any man ask for???? Well …….

Like my friend Dale with the donuts, David was unable to maintain a gluttonous pace with women. When I look at both men, I see a problem. One I haven’t been able to successfully work through myself. The problem?

There is an itch deep within my soul I am unable to scratch with anything even though I try everything. In addition, I don’t know HOW to let God into my life such that He can scratch it for me!

Dale and David both showed that you can’t satisfy your desires no matter how much of the desired item you have. Donuts, women, booze, drugs, electronic things, golf, whatever it is.

I am not a counselor, but it appears to me that the attempts to do exactly as Dale and David tried to do leads to addictions. In today’s world, we have an addiction for everything. I understand addictions. Like Dale and David, I struggle with the attempt to fill the hole with things other than God. Others have described the hole as a God sized vacuum that only God can fill. I understand that. I understand addictions. I also understand that you will NEVER get addictions under control if YOU keep trying to fill the hole with stuff. You battle alcohol and quit drinking. Now you are doing drugs. You begin to deal with that and sexual addictions become a problem. You abstain and compulsive purchases become a problem. There is NO END to the misery of your own effort. I speak from experience. The scriptures speak clearly to this very issue in Isaiah 50:10-11 (NET Bible http://net.bible.org/home.php)

Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys his servant? Whoever walks in deep darkness, without light, should trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Look, all of you who start a fire and who equip yourselves with flaming arrows, walk in the light of the fire you started and among the flaming arrows you ignited! This is what you will receive from me: you will lie down in a place of pain.

Here is the Andy version of these scriptures:

Are you a Christian who loves God yet struggles and you don’t know why? Trust God to show you, but DON’T try to fill the hole in your life with stuff or it will cause you deep pain and frustration!

Now that is how I read this scripture and that is how I see David’s situation. His request for a clean heart makes perfect sense to me. He recognizes the wickedness he is capable of doing, yet seemingly unable to stop. He asks God to do for him what he can’t do yet wants desperately.

I understand his thinking here. I see in me things I hate yet I don’t have the ability to “fix” them.

I want to close with this final thought. Even though I see the things in my life I don’t like, I am not despairing about them. I used to, but not today. These things haven’t caught God off guard, only me. He knew about them long before I did and while I can’t see the end results, He does and His assurance that everything will be ok with me one day is of great comfort to me.

My hope and prayer is that you too may experience that great assurance if you find your self in the same position David and I have.