“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps 51:10).
What a practical two-pronged request! Lord, get me back on track, and then help me to keep going on it! This petition is crucial, for, as H.A. Ironside says: “This is the secret of so many unanswered prayers. This also explains why, so often, we try to pray and there is neither joy nor liberty….Communion is broken. Our prayers are vain. The heavens seem as brass above, and the ground below is stayed from dew. Refreshing of soul there is none. For by our careless ways and lack of self-judgment we have so wounded our Holy Guest that He is, if I may so speak, in grieved retirement. He has not left us; He never leaves; He abides forever; but He cannot be at home in a heart where so much is tolerated that is disgusting and a grief to Him.”
“But,” says Nehemiah, “You are God, ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and did not forsake them” (Neh 9:17).