"May I never lose my wonder. May I never lose my wonder. Wide eyed and mystified, may I be just like a child, staring at the beauty of my King." Bethel, "Wonder"
"God, be merciful to me because You are Loving. Because, You are always ready to be Merciful, wipe out all my wrongs. Wash away all my guilt and make me clean again." Psalm 51:1-2
"Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever." Psalm 23:6
"God, You will not reject a heart that is broken and sorry for its sin." Psalm 51:17
"Create in me a pure heart, God. Make my spirit right again." Psalm 51:10
Today is my non-working day and I just finished watching "David and Bathsheba", a movie is from 1951 with Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward and I am crying....
The film is really good. It might sound surprising to some, since I am a convinced romantic, but I do not like old movies because I cannot identify with them and to be frank I find them a bit cheesy. But this movie got to me. It portraits King David at the peak of his royal glory, yet feeling a bit lost and longing for the boy he once was. What got to me the most, was the end of the movie, after his first child with Bathsheba dies and he is confronted by prophet Nathan about his sin. Nathan tells David what his punishment will be and (in the movie) he also tells David that Bathsheba will have to be judged according to the law (be stoned to death for adultery). David tries every argument to save her and in the end he turns around to Nathan and says: "If God is as you say He is, let Him speak for Himself" and then at the risk of losing his life, he goes before God and The Ark of The Covenant.
It was well known that if there was any sin or uncleanliness in you, you would drop dead before The Ark, but David risked it anyway. The first thing he tells God is "God of my youth..." He acknowledges his sin and exposes his heart before God completely bare: "Don't look at me as I am now. Look at the boy I once was before You. Kill this David and let that boy live again." And then he places both his hands on The Ark, in an ultimate act of trust in God's mercy. The hands dirtied by the blood of Uriah, Bathsheba's killed husband. The hands that touched another man's wife... those hands, David stretches forward and touches God, the only way he can. In the movie, there is a thunder and a lightning and God takes him back and lets him see the boy David again- full of trust and light and brave. Then all stops and David not only lives, but he stands before The Ark with wonder in his eyes. A storm begins and David gets out of the tent. Prophet Nathan tells him:" No one can profess to know God completely, but today He showed us another glimpse of His face." David goes straight to Bathsheba, grabs her hands and takes her out in the cleansing rain.
Throughout everything I described above I was sobbing with tears running down my face. Why? Because I know that feeling so well, when the guilt and the pain of separation from Him, makes you drag yourself before Him and crush down there. You are acutely aware of what you deserve, of what He is entitled to do to you. And still, you remember "because You are Loving...", "Because You are always ready to be Merciful...", "Surely, goodness and mercy..."
All week I listened to a song from Bethel called "Wonder". It is meant to be a congregational prayer "May we never lose our wonder. May we never lose our wonder. Wide eyed and mystified, may we be just like a child staring at the beauty of our King." All week I considered and pondered the beauty and the innocence of a child's soul- the perfect trust, the goodness, the light, the joy. Why? Because, that is the yearning of my heart. I want to have the heart of a child before God- open and trusting and full of wonder. And there is nothing that I've experienced to be more wonderful, than God's mercy.
You think you know Him, right? You think you know what His decision will be. You know what you deserve...and still something pushes you forward before Him "because He is Loving", "because He is always ready to be Merciful..." and "Surely, goodness and mercy..."
And time and again you stand up afterwards and instead of judgement and punishment, you get goodness and mercy, because He "never rejects a heart that is broken and sorry for its sin."
"May I never lose my wonder..."
I hate it when I sin, mainly because 99% of the time I know what I am doing. That is what sickens me the most, that I could choose good and holiness and I choose something else instead. I compared it once with receiving a beautiful white dress and with the first occasion trashing it in the pig stall...
I used to lay there in the mire, paralysed by guilt and numb with longing until He would remind me again that "He is Loving...always ready to be Merciful" and "Surely, goodness and mercy..."
And time and again, after dragging my dirt before Him, goodness and mercy is what I always received.
People will tell you many things about God. You might even be "fortunate" enough to have people come and point to your sin. Or even worse, you might end up having your sin exposed before the whole world. You might then end up feeling bare, naked, guilty, humiliated and worthy of whatever judgement is about to come your way. But let me tell you something that I learnt from David and from making the trip to the pig stall many many times. People are more eager to judge and less merciful than God will ever be. So if you ever end up in such a place, silence the voices of the accusers, as right as they might be about your sin, and somehow drag yourself before God, the God of your youth, the Loving and Merciful God because He "never rejects a heart that is broken and sorry for its sin." Therein lies the wonder of it all. That He could give you judgement and He chooses to give you goodness and mercy instead.
"May I never lose my wonder..."
May I never take any of this for granted, or ignore His Loving, Merciful way with me. May I never dare to forget...
"Wide eyed and mystified, may I be just like a child staring at the beauty of my King."
