Psalm 51

Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.
² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.

³ For I acknowledge my transgressions,
And my sin is always before me.
⁴ Against You, You only, have I sinned,
And done this evil in Your sight—
That You may be found just when You speak,
And blameless when You judge.

⁵ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.
⁶ Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,
And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.

⁷ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
⁸ Make me hear joy and gladness,
That the bones You have broken may rejoice.
⁹ Hide Your face from my sins,
And blot out all my iniquities.

¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me away from Your presence,
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

¹² Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
¹³ Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
And sinners shall be converted to You.

¹⁴ Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
The God of my salvation,
And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.
¹⁵ O Lord, open my lips,
And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
¹⁶ For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
You do not delight in burnt offering.
¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise.

¹⁸ Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion;
Build the walls of Jerusalem.
¹⁹ Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness,
With burnt offering and whole burnt offering;
Then they shall offer bulls on Your altar.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity

Do you know what one of my favorite things about working with watercolor is? It’s a very forgiving medium. When I make a mistake, it’s easy to wash out. I just get out some clean water to wash it with and blot out the mistake with a paper towel. Then I can paint over it like nothing ever happened. God’s got the cleanest water and the most absorbent Brawny towels waiting for our mistakes.

And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.

Still, acknowledging a mistake is the first step to getting it cleaned up, right? Otherwise, everyone who picks up a paint brush would be Winslow Homer. Unlike artistic ability, however, we’ve all got the ability to determine right and wrong (even if some of us seem to lose it along the way). If we’re not examining ourselves and keeping God’s truth in our inward parts, we can’t see what is wrong in our spirits.

Winslow Homer's Rowing Home

Create in me a clean heart, O God

Sometimes when I’m painting, everything starts to go south. A small mistake here, a lost line there, sloppy paint on one part, cookie crumbs landing on another. There is no easy way that I can salvage it, and I have to start from the beginning on a new piece of paper. The word “create” here is the same one used in Genesis 1:1. When God is fixing up our mistakes, he has the power to make from scratch in us a new, clean heart when it has gotten too dirty.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart

So, how do we put together all these things so that God can make us clean? He doesn’t require us to do anything or give Him anything, especially since we learned in Psalm 50 that God already has everything He needs. The thing that God requires from us is that we be introspective and realize when we’ve gone and mucked up our spirits. We have to have a desire to get it clean, and regret that we were careless enough to let it get that bad. Only then, God, the world’s greatest artist, can come in and make it beautiful again.