Psalm 51:1-12
"Have mercy on my, O G-d, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O G-d, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."THOUGHTS:
I think David, the psalmist, struggled with self-loathing. I believe there were days where he completely doubted everything that he knew to be true about himself. That doubt led him to do some bad stuff, like commit adultery and then kill his lover's husband. Those actions only added to his self-loathing.He had a self-loathing spirit. After reading so many of the Psalms, one can figure out, he some major ups and downs. Often times I think he communicated some warped ideas of who G-d is and who he is. If you dive into the Psalms, you can really see David's brokenness, not just in his mistakes but in his hearts cry. David's heart though was ever-seeking after G-d. The desire of his heart was to be one with the Lord, to do his will. The desire of his heart was for a steadfast spirit, not a self-loathing one.
I struggle with this self- hatred. There was a time in my life that I couldn't accept the unconditional love of G-d because of my own hatred for myself and what I had done. G-d freely gave his forgiveness. He's not counting our sins against us, but boy, we sure do. And the more we count our own sins, the more we count the sins of others. The more we hate ourselves, the more we hate others. The less we love ourselves and embrace ourselves as-is, the less we love others and embrace them as-is.
If we struggle with loving others unconditionally, it's because we don't love ourselves unconditionally and we don't allow G-d to love us unconditionally. The love of G-d pours into us, if we let it, and it pours out of us. We are to love G-d with all we got, and then to love our neighbor as ourself. But if we don't love ourself, we can't love our neighbor. How we feel about ourself is what is put out towards others.
It sounds so contrary but we must embrace our entire self. Look at it fully and embrace it. We attempt to murder the person within us, all the while we are murdering the very thing that holds and carries the image of G-d. We hold and carry the image of G-d - it is worthy of our love. We must seek the good in ourselves and cultivate that, instead of wallowing in the bad. The bad is there. It is what it is. We can't go back. We can't extract it. It is G-d who transforms anything bad within us, not us. The more we seek the good in ourselves and press into that, the more G-d deals with the brokenness and heals it. But we must not self-loathe. We must embrace our good, bad and ugly.
ACTION:
Lord, help me to see you in me. Help me to cling to what is good, holy, pure and right. Help me to press towards your love and your compassion. G-d, I give the rest to you and I lay it your hands. I refuse to hate myself or count those things against myself because you don't count them against me. Lord, in giving the rest to you, I repent that those things aren't your good, your holy, your pure and your right. I trust that you will be just with them and that you will love me anyways.
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