Trevor Johnston's Blog

“Have mercy on me o God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion BLOT out my transgression…

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow…

Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. ”

I couldn’t believe what I was reading last night.  I was feeling so scummy, so sinful, so far away from God.  Every time I feel the weight of my disobedience I always want to get out of it.  I want God to forget it.  I want it to never to have happened.  I don’t want to be cut off.  I want to feel God.  I want to be happy again in Him and I want it right now.  I squirm.

So much of my life I have been taught that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.  I always felt that when I sinned, God left my presence because He couldn’t be close to sin.  My own choices bring my punishment.. distance and sorrow.  Work to get back to Him.  My payment is time in prison until the broken relationship is healed.

My heart cries out for it to be different.  I want my foolish decision to be made ok.  I want everything that I broke to be fixed.  I want everything to be made normal again.  And I always feel guilty for feeling this way.  I feel so stupid.  I hear a voice in my head telling me to suck it up and take the consequences.

“Do you really think God will just make it ok after what you did?”

“It doesn’t work that way.  He can’t.”

But in Psalm 51 David cries out just like me.  He cries for healing the rift.  He cries out for God to BLOT out what he did.  To completely scratch it off.  To restore everything as if it never happened.  Really, think about the word “blot”.  Imagine God writing down what you did wrong and then pouring ink over it so you can never read it again.  EVER.  “Whiter than snow” means to be made as pure as possible.  “Restore the joy” means to make me happy again in God.  God bringing His presence, the Joy from knowing Him, the peace, all this stuff that WE SO TOTALLY DON’T DESERVE.  It is so human to cry out for this.  David, me and you.

AND THE BEST PART IS THAT GOD ACTUALLY DOES IT!

You have got to be kidding me.  Something I have learned this year:  if it is too good to be true, that is usually where God is waiting.