"Create In Me"

My lovely aunt sent me the new Rend Collective cd, and I have jumped on the bandwagon…

One of the songs is particularly speaking to my heart right now. (It is at the bottom for you to listen to.)

It starts with this:
Create in me a clean, clean heart

Create in me a work of art

Create in me a miracle

Something real and something beautiful

I heard it in a moment where I was just overwhelmed by my desire for a clean heart bur also the reality of how dirty it really is.

I feel the heaviness of my selfishness, my anger, my hurt.  Life isn’t easy and we all hurt each other. I’ve been hurt and so out of that I hurt others.  I want life to be easy and it just isn’t most of the time.  I just want to know how to have a clean heart in a world where our hearts are all pretty mud-covered.

This song comes from Psalm 51:10, which says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (NIV)  Some versions use, in the place of steadfast, words like loyal, right, resolute, or faithful.

It seems pretty impossible.  Life seems to bring new challenges and frustrations around every corner.  How is it possible for us to have a clean and pure heart?  Are we capable of being loyal and right and faithful? It doesn’t seem like a really realistic goal.

But the song continues:

You’re not finished with me yet

By Your power I can change, I can change

Because You’re not finished with me yet

It is an impossible goal, by ourselves.  But when we truly submit and surrender to God’s voice and leading in our lives, oh He is not finished with us yet.  He can change our hearts by His power.  I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced it…I am experiencing it currently!  Little by little I am trying to loosen my grip on my ugliness (because sometimes it is weirdly hard to let go of) and release it into His control. I am trying to let Him redeem the ugliness and dirtiness of my heart.

And another song comes on and says right at this perfect moment, “It’s only in surrender that I am truly free…I am free”

He is not finished with you yet – Paul reminds us of this in Philippians 1:6, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

He is never finished with us.  And through His work in our lives we find freedom.  Thank.the.Lord.