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The other day, I posted a blog inspired by Psalm 55, so today I decided to take a stab at another Psalm - Psalm 51. It is one of my favorites. Truthfully, there aren't too many Psalms I don't love. I read and re-read them all the time and they give me such blessing and comfort. Getting back to the message at hand, however, this Psalm reminds me that my God is a God who forgives, and a God who will use me for his purpose. What a wonderful God!
It is my belief that God has a plan for each of His children to be used by Him in an extraordinary way. The deal is, however, God doesn't want part of us - He wants to take our whole lives, even those dark, secret, places that we don't like to reveal. Actually He wants those parts most of all, so that he can shed some light on those areas and help us to rid ourselves of these dark spots once and for all. Once we give them to Him, God is able to clean us and transform us so that we no longer have to deal with these areas. Well, It's not always as simple as never having to deal with the problem again, but it does give us insight into the area and helps us grow toward having less and less of a problem with that area of our life.
Change is hard. In my life, I have found that I was able to change a lot of behaviors and wrong attitudes on my own. I was feeling pretty proud of myself. Then I found out there is a reason that God warns us about false pride and thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought (Romans 12:3). It is because He wants us not to rely on ourselves in that way; it brings us low in the end if we try to rely fully on ourselves. Yes, we are required to do a lot of work in order to better ourselves, but the reliance, the understanding, and the motivation needs to be steeped in God and His word. That is what creates positive and lasting change in our lives.
Once we make these changes, then we are able to use our lives, our struggles and our victories to show others how they too can overcome the obstacles of life with the help of our God. It is my belief that we are allowed to go through the problems in our lives, so that we can be a positive witness for Him. Our reliance on Him is not a form of bondage to rules and dogma, as some may see it, but yet a freedom that is so much better than any freedom we can have on our own terms. Who better to get that message out than those of us who have struggled, fought, and won our freedom through our reliance on Him?
I am reminded of the ending to a Christmas Carol where Tiny Tim says "God Bless us, everyone.", but instead I want to say "God uses us, everyone!"
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