THE JOY OF MY SALVATION

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.      – Psalm 51:12

 

It has been said that no two snowflakes are the same. They carry distinctive common characteristics in what NASA calls their “six-fold radial symmetry.” These icy crystals are far more than frozen drops of water coming from a cloud. At their center is dirt! The crystals slowly grow only after they are attached to a “particle” of pollution in the atmosphere.

Like snowflakes, pearls are also things of beauty. Yet once again, dirt or a parasite gets trapped between the shells of the mollusk and that irritant causes the oyster or mussel to protect itself with layers of nacre. Like it or not, people are like pearls and snowflakes with a dirty irritant, sin, at the center of their being which causes rebellion against the love of God.

 

King David wrote Psalm 51 after the prophet Nathan confronted him about his affair with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah. David had reflected on Nathan’s words, and this psalm was his admission of a soiled heart and life, his worship and adoration of the Lord, and his confidence in the hope of God for restoration. He acknowledged God’s justice even as he sought God’s mercy.

In Bill Gaither’s song, “Something Beautiful,” he confirms what happens when God gives restoration. “Something beautiful, something good / All my confusion He understood / All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife / But He made something beautiful of my life.” Whatever has polluted your life can be put at the center of something beautiful in the hands of your merciful God. You can be a snowflake, a pearl, or a sunbeam for Jesus.

In Psalm 51, David promised to pass along the message of restoration. You, too, can honor what the Lord has done for you by sharing the incredible good news of His love with others.