Whiter than Snow

This book is like the awful tasting medicine you had to swallow as a child when you had a fever...but as we know, it helped us get better...so end the end we were thankful for it. Or maybe you were stubborn (like me) and it took many years for you to realize that the awful taste was worth it.

Anyway, enough with the analogy...

My roommate introduced this devotional book to me a few months ago and I found myself hooked. I basically stole it for a few weeks before I eventually bought my own.

It's a series of meditations on sin and mercy as the author goes verse by verse through Psalm 51 when David confesses his sin to the Lord and pleads for mercy.

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.

10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.

18 May it please you to prosper Zion,
to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
in burnt offerings offered whole;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Each time I open this book I'm reminded and deeply convicted by my sin (awful taste), but also reminded and deeply moved by the mercy, love, and hope that God faithfully gives me (thankfulness). Because I am freely given what I'm in desperate need for, I'm compelled to repent of my sin and put God back on the thrown of my life.

Here's a quote from the first devotional:

“...when I come to the Lord after I've blown it, I've only one argument to make. It's not the argument of the difficulty of the environment that I am in. It's not the argument of the difficult people that I'm near. It's not the argument of the good intentions that were thwarted in some way. No, I have only one argument. It's right there in the first verse of Psalm 51, as David confesses his sin with Bathsheba. I come to the Lord with only one appeal, his mercy.”