Cleaning Up!

It’s sabbatical time again.  I have looked forward to this extended 8 week sabbath for quite a while. Since a sabbatical is intended for rest of the body, mind and spirit, I did just that my first week.  I read a little, rested a lot, and reflected on the beauty of God’s creation.  I’m fortunate to be in a place where the trees and water feed my soul and the evening sunsets are breathtaking.  

However, last week storms also came through northern Minnesota, uprooting trees, taking out power, and leaving debris everywhere. I have looked at all the fallen trees and hundreds of sticks and branches in my yard this week with resentment. How could my beautiful nature turn on me and leave such a mess!  I don’t want to have to do clean up while reconnecting with God.  

 But these trees have been teaching me a lesson about my spiritual life.  It is great to have more time in quiet for prayer, reading and reflection.  They are all important practices.  But spiritual renewal also comes with the harder work of clean-up - to be willing to take a tough look at the places where I am broken, splintered, and shallow - to  be honest about where I have dead branches or parts to be cut up and thrown on the burn pile - to accept the reality that the more I keep branching out the less energy is directed to my root system.  
Clean up was not in my sabbatical plan but it seems to have emerged as an important part of the process in order to reconnect with a sense of purpose, freedom and passion in Christ.

Psalm 51 is traditionally understood in the context of David’s confession to God after being convicted of his sins by the prophet Nathan. The prayer begins with a cry for forgiveness followed by a desire for a new beginning.  “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” vs 2  Interestingly, the Hebrew word for iniquity means “to be bent out of shape,” perhaps like trees blown by the wind.  In being made right again with God, the psalmist acknowledges that the witness and sacrifice the Lord desires is not something we can bring as an offering but rather who we are in our human vulnerability.  "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart."  vs 17 

Clean up is hard work - outside and inside.  Yet perhaps it is in self examination, confession and forgiveness that we find the greatest rest and renewal.

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit."  Psalm 51: 10,12