ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHING
July 3, 2021
Scripture: Psalm 51:2-3
Wash me completely clean of my guilt; purify me from my sin! Because I know my wrongdoings, my sin is always right in front of me.
Thought for the Day: After yesterday’s Etching, I got to thinking some more about the importance of making an apology – of confessing our sins/mistakes and expressing genuine regret. With that in mind, I am struck by the words, “Because I know my wrongdoings, my sin is always right in front of me.” Are we always knowledgeable of our mistakes and failures? Probably not, yet I believe we are more often aware than we’d like to admit. We dance around the subject, make excuses, throw up a little smoke screen, create peculiar justifications or fabricate nonsensical stories because we are so deep into the sin. When the author seeks to be made clean, I don’t believe it is the sin alone. The wash needs to include the other dirt that we used in our attempt to hide the original sin.
Prayer: We can pretend and play a lot of games, yet your Spirit never quite allows us to get away with it. You do not want us to live our lives in guilt, yet guilt is often a tool used to awaken us to some problem in our lives. I don’t know if you, Lord God, pour guilt on us or if it is simply how we are wired. Whatever the case, I ask that it awakens me wherever I need to be awakened. Amen.
