Journal 2-7-14

Psalm 51:10-13, 1 Samuel 15, 2 Samuel 1
"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right Spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit."
     I was looking through the Psalms the other day and trying to find a scripture or two that I could use to memorize and use in prayer for myself and my family. This is one of the ones I chose. I might say "Create in Hunter, or Mia, or Faith a clean heart... and then finish with the prayer. I feel like incorporating scripture in my prayers gives them a bit of "kick"if you know what I mean. Anyway, in reading the Psalm I noticed that this was the Psalm David wrote when He was asking for forgiveness from the Lord because of his relationship with Bathsheba. So upon investigating David's life and this Psalm I notice that in 1 Samuel 15 that David had already seen what happened when God removed his spirit from King Saul, it was the start of his bitter downfall. This was caused because king Saul did not follow through with God's orders completely. In short, he was disobedient to the desire of God's heart. Savanah, that means he was doing it on his own! Has anybody ever thought they could manipulate the rules God has put on us? I have and this is the same deal.
     Looking further into David's life, I see that King David in 2 Samuel slept with Bathsheba and arranged for her husband's death. Murder, adultery, and selfishness come to mind here. In reading this story, I gather that on the surface David's sins were much greater than King Saul's. So why would God take Saul's throne away and not David's? Because David was humble and broken about his sin. He admitted it and asked God for forgiveness. Saul was never willing to admit his sins, he continued in denial, because his pride got in the way.
     What's the lesson here? That if we try to hide or deny our sins, we are in grave danger of God's punishment. But if we are sensitive to our sins and humbly seek God's forgiveness, there is hope for us, no matter how great our sins are. In doing this, God is able to remove the guilt we have on our conscious, which is the incubator for more sin, and restore our joy, enabling us to walk further with the Lord. Doing this is what keeps God's ears to our prayers, His eyes on our lives, and His will for our lives on the right track. So Savanah, if you cheat on your boyfriend and don't make it right with God and your boyfriend, if you carry that around with you, if you try to hide it and handle things on your terms, it's going to turn God's ear from your prayers, His grace from your life, and birth chaos into your life. It's what gives Satan the upper hand to destroy us! It's poison to our souls. That hiding is caused by pride and it's what I've been doing for a long time and it's why I have suffered so much negative consequences in my life today! Please don't make those same choices in your life kiddos, friends, and family.

Prayer: Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be they name. God, create in us a clean heart and renew in us a right spirit. Dear Lord, don't let us out of your sight and please don't take your Holy Spirit from us. Restore to us the joy of your salvation and uphold us with a willing spirit. Deliver us from our guilt O God of our salvation.  Amen

Random thought: In this post alone I myself have learned two things that are very important to me. One we discussed, that God knows our heart and that we need to deal with the sins in our lives correctly to keep God's favor upon us but that in dealing with the sins of people who have hurt us or somehow wronged us we should be forgiving as well. That is what perfect love is all about. The parable in John 8:1-11)comes to mind. In that story, the scribes and pharisees brought an adulterating woman to Jesus and they wanted to stone her. Jesus said sure "those of you who are without sin, be the first to throw a stone." Needless to say, no stones were thrown and the woman was told "go and sin now more". Because of this story, I'm focused on cheating husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. I've been on both sides of the fence and think that on both sides it sucks. I can remember feeling guilt on one side and anger on another side. Feelings of hurt and disappointment on both sides as well. Today because I have God in my life I'd like to think that it would not be possible for me to go through with such a sin and likewise if a sin like that was committed against me I'd have to say that it would be my place to show a perfect love and give grace because I can't throw stones either.
     In sharing these stories and my life with you guys I hope to create an honest account of my life experiences with you so 1) you can learn from my mistakes and 2) it will free me from carrying these burdens in my life. My heart is with fathers, addicts, kids who grow up in homes without a parent or with addicted parents and such. It has become my passion to tell my story in hopes that somewhere somehow somebody will use my experiences and maybe put a stop to the generational curses in our lives. I realize that some of these posts are more touching and personal to some than others and some may flat suck, but I believe God has put a call on my life to minister to dad's like me, people with addictions, afflictions and sin in their lives. I hope to show our teenage children that early on the smallest sins in our lives can create and be the start of something tragic in their years to come! I want to show my kids and my family that I love them and that I'm not as cool as I thought I was.
     For the better part of my life I've been doing it on my own and it that has got me no where! So "if it ain't right don't do it." Please help me to get these posts to people who will use them, gain from them, and help me to feel like I've been able to give back and help some poor lost soul like me.