Ash Wednesday is a day of reckoning for us. We take a deep breath and a long hard HONEST look inside. It’s a day in which we recognize our brokenness and admit our great need for help, for a savior.
Now, to be clear, it is NOT the job of any man to reveal this to another. It is the work of God. And it is only through the work of the Holy Spirit that we know this reality. I am writing this to you to state my brokenness, acknowledge my need for a savior, and share what I’ve discovered in my life. It is not to point out anything in your life specifically; that’s up to God.
Some people have made it their duty to emphasize this taken it upon themselves to help God out when they were never asked! God can certainly use people to bring things to our attention, but the convicting work is all God’s.
I feel like a Michael Jackson song is appropriate here. “I’m starting with the man in the mirror…asking him to change his ways…If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and make a change.” (Man in the Mirror)
When the Holy Spirit holds us up and looks upon us, we are able to see a reflection of ALL the things we ARE and ALL the things we ARE NOT but are created to be.
I have often heard of counterfeit money inspectors and the nature of their training is NOT to study and learn ALL the various types of counterfeits. They simply study the REAL bills.
Psalm 51 is a song of a man who knew what the real thing looked like, and is looking at his own reflection staring at what appears to be a cheap imitation, a poorly designed knockoff, a two-bit counterfeit. He says,
“I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. Against you I have sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.” (v3-4)
And so, there is total transparency here, David is said to have written this in response to the time a prophet visited him after David had committed adultery with another man’s wife, gotten her pregnant, deceitfully tried to cover it up, and then had her husband killed when his plan failed!
This is textbook Ash Wednesday stuff. (For another even darker self-evaluation writing, see Psalm 22. Here the man is wrecked!!!)
It is in this owning of our own reality that we can find hope for something new. The nature of Psalm 51 is restorative! David comes to terms with his shortcoming yet holds to the hope of something more, the truth of something better – a guiltless and joy-filled.
As we kick off this Lenten season and travel the road to resurrection, may we come face to face with our own filth and find that in claiming it, we have access to overcoming it. As the Holy Spirit brings conviction, may we find restoration!
#ManInTheMirror
#AshesToAshes
#RestoringWholenessOfLife
Brett
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