God began stirring in my heart a new song a few weeks ago. Sometimes when there is a song in my heart I can tell you "oh this is where these words are coming from" but with this new song I really didn't have any idea. But I keep singing the words and playing the little chord progression over and over and praying over the words and waiting for God to fill in the blank spots. The words come from Psalm 51. David I believe wrote this psalm after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba but he didn't write these words until after he had been confronted by Nathan a prophet in the land. So I have been thinking about this idea of what is acceptable to God and what exactly is brokenness and what does it look like. Before now the term brokenness has meant to me something that needed fixed. If something is broken don't we call the repair person to come fix it? So I guess I thought that brokenness in this psalm referred to David having something wrong with him………..his sin with Bathsheba………and what God desired was for David to bring that brokenness, that broken part of him or his sinfulness to God so it could be fixed. I viewed brokenness as a way to restoration with God. But the more I thought about that idea of brokenness the more I realized that I was presuming that before it got broke……obviously something was right and I'm just not sure that is the way it is.
Verse 5 in this Psalm says: "Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me."
Are we not born into sin………..ok you say that cute little innocent child cannot possibly be born into sin well I think we are all born into sin. I'm not saying anything about going to hell or judgment or who is going to heaven. I don't think brokenness and sin have anything to do with judgment or the afterlife rather I think it all has to do with our relationship with God in the right here and the right now.
So if we are all born into sin, we are all "sinners" from birth then we are already broken before we ever take a breath so that means I need to rethink my idea of what brokenness means in this Psalm.
As I looked into some of the meanings of the words used in Psalm 51, I discovered that the word "broken" can actually translate into crushed, broken in pieces, torn and brought to birth. I liked the last one especially. The word contrite is often used in Psalm 51 and it can mean crushed or collapsed whether physically or mentally. So if we bring a brokenness to God then we are in a sense bringing something totally crushed or broken in pieces and when we give those broken things to God then
God can bring forth a new birth from them. So God doesn't want our brokenness so it can be fixed, God wants it so that something new can be born. One could use the analogy of garden soil to understand this form of brokenness. The soil is unbroken or solid but it can't yield anything that way other than some grass or weeds. So we take a tiller or some other machine and we break the ground so that seeds can be planted and in time the garden soil will yield fruit or vegetables. The ground, once broken, can give birth to something new, to something that could only be born out of brokenness.
So my prayer with this song is that God will take those things in me that will not yield anything positive and break them and crush them and bring about something new that could never have been without the brokenness.
Wash Me
(Psalm 51)
I lift my voice to You
I raise my hands in praise
All to You I freely give
All to You I owe
Not a sacrifice You desire
Not an offering that You seek
But my brokenness You'll take
And wash me
Wash me in Your love
Empty I come to You
Fill me with Your unfailing love
All I have is Yours alone
Only by Your grace
Mercy like a river flows
Washing me white as snow
