And renew a right spirit within me...
Squeezed in the middle of David’s psalm of repentance, we hear him ask God to renew a right spirit, a steadfast spirit, a willing spirit, to sustain him.
Renew means to make new. It is not a brand-new thing, but rather a returning to what it was before, or making it even better.
We can restore or up-cycle an old chair. We renew its purpose and remember its function.
David made a similar request of God. Renew my purpose. Help me remember my function. Restore my spirit and...
Restore unto me the joy of my salvation...
He lost sight of the joy of his salvation when he looked to other things as the source of his happiness.
Through David’s example and his prayerful psalm, we see the correlation between repentance and renewal. We cannot embrace the new without first discarding the old.
In your longing to be renewed today, what do you first need to cast off? Repent of?
With the Lord’s mercies that are new every morning, His great faithfulness that continues throughout all generations, we can start fresh today: renewed and restored.
