July 31, 2011

  • Uncovering Dark Black Paint

    My prayer recently has been, "Search me, God, and know my heart.  Test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting."  (Ps 139)

    At first, I didn't really want to pray this prayer.  I was fearful of real scrutiny from God -- scared of seeing my sinfulness rise to the surface.  Nobody really wants to be confronted by the truth of their ugly self.  But then I was reminded that "sin is broken" and "Christ is risen" and there is victory.  My guilt does not re-convict me and leave me in a place of desperation.  Sin is broken.  His work of atonement covers any new sin that I see uncovered (amazing!).

    When I was a freshman in high school, I wrote a line in a poem that still comes back to me:  "dark black paint stared at me."  Sometimes I feel as though my sins = dark black paint.  And it is awful -- the feeling described in the poem.  The confrontation is terrifying.  Perhaps that is the nuance still attached to having my sins revealed:  terror and entrapment.

    And God says, "No, it is not like that."  Bringing your sins to (his) light results in freedom.

    Whenever I feel deep anguish, I always return to Psalm 130.  It begins, "Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear my voice.  Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy."  I feel a deep resonation with these sentiments.  When I pray over them, I feel like I am identifying with Christians throughout history -- and myself from years past.  For, a long time ago, before I was a Christian, I came across this psalm, and every night, I would pray over these words (from v.v. 1-2).  So even now when I re-read these words, a flood of emotions come to me from the past, and I am immediately reminded of how God came through for me... and how with him, there is "full redemption."