Journal Ps 6-7 (all references are from the ESV; changes in punctuation are mine)
Scripture: “O Lord my God.
If I have done this; if there is wrong in my hands;
If I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause;
Let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it and let him trample my life to the ground and
lay my glory in the dust.” (Ps 7:3-5)
Observation: How many skip over these verses, thinking they are too dark or not applicable personally? I submit that it is difficult to dig deep in my own heart to be fiercely transparent before the Lord my God and let Him, the Holy Spirit, to be the convictor of Sin that He is. (John 8:7-14)
Analysis: I don’t know of many folks who have modeled this behavior in my past.
How many have I come across modeling “bright, sunshiny, positive, joyful/happy, etc.” behavior? Many. And many have been true and without being fake about it.
How many have I come across that seem to have this “plastic, somehow untruthful, putting on the dog, the Christian show” sort of demeanor? Tons.
The word I am searching for is “authentic.”
What does an authentic Believer look like? At times, they look like what David looks like in the above reference in Psalms 7. Other times, they look like Psalms 150. Point is: authentic Christian behavior looks like from one end to another on the scale represented by the Scriptures.
Another point is that if I don’t have these same emotions, this “crying out to God” about my own sin; if I am shoveling those thoughts and feelings and, yes, convictions of wrong-doing, that sin—If I am avoiding those convictions in some sort of “that isn’t how Christians are supposed to act and feel” then I am not either honest with myself or with the God I serve.
What I am writing about isn’t advocating being a “whole person”—I am writing sternly to myself that, even though God sees through me every day, I should get a grip with the fact that I need to be FIERCELY transparent to the One who wants me the most to be like his Son. (Ro 8:29)
Prayer: Lord, despair of my own sin doesn’t rise up in me like I think it should these days. It is as if I am content to coast, feeling a tweak here or there, confessing it, repenting of it, and…be done with it. Even when I know I repeat that same action over and over in a compressed timeline, it doesn’t affect my heart.
David writes in Ps 42: “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope again in God for I shall again praise Him my salvation…” Pursuing and surrendering to You, O God, is a monumental task, taking focus to do so every day. Make me do what is needed that I may be pleasing in Your Sight, O God my salvation. AMEN