We’ve all failed at times. David failed big time – he had defeated the Philistines, he was the rightful king, yet that wasn’t enough. He wanted someone else’s wife, and he was prepared to do anything, even murder to get her. He thought he had got away with it, but just as any good thriller on the TV, his sins were found out. And it took the prophet Nathan to bring David to his senses.
As a result David writes this well-known psalm of confession. It speaks of David acknowledging his sin and his guilt, he makes no excuses. He worships God who David knows is the only way to receive full forgiveness, God is the only one who can truly put things right.
That is not to say that when we do wrong to another person, we should not seek forgiveness from them. Rather that in doing wrong to another person, we do wrong to God.
In an attitude of repentance, David asks God to create in him a pure heart. The Hebrew word for create in this context is bara, and is only ever applied to God. It is the same verb as used in Genesis 1 to describe the Creation of the universe and all things. Only God can do this sort of creating. It’s not some sort of makeover, or repair job. It is the same sort of creating that Jesus referred to when Nicodemus came to him and was told he needed to be “born again”, or when Paul wrote to the Corinthians telling them “anyone in Christ is a new creation.”
David failed big time, yet God created him to lead.
We have all failed at times and we will continue to fail, but this psalm gives us hope that when we are faithful to God, when we are truly sorry, acknowledge our guilt, then God can create in us a clean heart, clean hands and a clean head. It is only God who can truly change us in our failure.
TFTD: Based on Spring Harvest 2021 Bible study series “Worshipping the God of all in all of life” Edited by Mark Greene from licc which looks at the topic of worship in the Psalms.