If you’re doing the Create in Me a Clean Heart Devotional for the Disorganized with me, then we’re now on week three. This week’s reading was a little difficult for me, because the context of the verse quoted for the week has to do with the Father healing the backsliding of Israel. Is it the right way to use scripture to pluck out a verse and “apply” it to a situation in my own life? As I’ve been studying the Torah Portions these last few years I’ve come to see how easily we can misunderstand scripture by studying a verse here or a verse there without reading around it to get an understanding of the context and the intended audience.
“I will heal their backsliding,
I will love them freely,
For My anger has turned away from him.
Hosea 14:4
In spite of that question, I realized that the Father has indeed healed my own backsliding. He does love me freely. And then I realized something completely amazing…
The prayer for this week’s devotional says, in part:
“Bring me to where I need to be so I no longer struggle daily from my past faults and inadequacies.”
I realized that, finally, that is where I am for the most part. I feel free from the nagging accusations of not being good enough. I don’t know when it happened, or how, other than it’s been a long process. What a wonderful and liberating feeling! This week in particular I have been aware of a deep sense of joy within me. It doesn’t feel like a fleeting “fair weather” happiness, but a deeply rooted joy that comes from a bottomless well – from my Abba. There is peace there, and strength.
I also no longer feel the need for perfection, and it seems almost backwards but it’s easier keeping my home orderly when that unrealistic expectation is not there. And especially without that accusing voice telling me whatever I do isn’t good enough (so why bother).
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