The Art of Having a Guest Post

Hey!  Remember Mikey?  The guy who rocks the rocker look and rocks out on a Jim Adkins Telecaster? The guy who’s kicking Cancer’s ass?  You know him?  I thought I did.  I asked him to put together a guest post for me as I bang my head against a writer’s block and he comes back to me with this…  This piece of… gold.  Somewhere along the line, Mikey became wise.  This post blessed my heart.  I hope it does the same for you.  Here it is. So, as many of you may have concluded [from Aaron’s introduction], I am not Aaron.  My name is Mikey Fisher and I am a friend of Aaron’s and have been for over 10 years now.  Aaron and I met in Bible College back in 2000, I was a groomsman at his wedding and if it weren’t for the current distance between our families we would certainly be hanging out on a far more regular basis.  Aaron asked me a few days ago if I would be interested in submitting a guest blog on TAOBB and to give my thoughts on the theme verse (Psalm 51:17).  Naturally, I was excited and more than willing to share my thoughts with the masses that frequent Aaron’s blog.  I set about to work, and approached this writing in the same way I always do.  I first looked up the verse in my bible, it reads,

“My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; A broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise”

I immediately began to conjure ideas of how to communicate what I wanted to say about sacrificing a broken spirit to God, but when I decided to read the passage in a few parallel translations of the bible I have found that a more accurate translation of the passage reads,

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A heart broken and bruised, O God, Thou dost not despise.”

 In reading and rereading this passage in numerous translations and reading what different commentaries had to offer on the subject I have actually learned something.  That’s not to imply that I typically don’t learn anything from scripture reading, not at all.  It is meant to say that when one dives into a topic with reckless abandon and without preconceptions of what they want a passage to say, that person can find something far greater than their own notions.  In this case there is not a huge difference between the first translation and the more accurate one.  Excluding the ‘Thou dost’ issue, there is, I think, a key difference between the sacrifice that I offer, and the sacrifice that God is asking for.  And that is the difference that I would like to focus on.

King David wrote this passage after being convicted of his adulterous affair with Bathsheba by the prophet Nathan.  David was deeply moved in his own guilt and anguish when his sins of adultery and murder were laid out before him.  This passage is the very moment when it finally clicks with David.  He cannot simply light up an offering and put it on the altar and let that be good enough to appease God.  What God desires from him is a broken spirit, a humble attitude that admits wrong and at the same time is repentant of that sin.

How often do we commit a sin and think to ourselves, “It’s okay, I’ll pray and ask for forgiveness on this one and then I’m good.” How often do we continue in this sinful behavior pretending to be repentant but actually being unremorseful of our own actions?

David did some pretty serious and horrible stuff in the story leading up to the writing of Psalm 51.  He hurt many people, had a man killed and committed adultery.  David understands when writing Psalm 51 that it’s not about the lip-service prayers we love to offer, God wants a broken heart, and broken spirit.  Being remorseful and repenting of his sins is what grants him forgiveness.  It’s not about admitting what he did was wrong, it’s obvious to everyone and especially to God that what he did was wrong. Its taking the next step, being truly sorrowful about the bad that he had done and taking that emotion to God and repenting, reaching deep into his soul and really meaning it.  That is what it means to offer a broken spirit.  To be humble enough to admit when you are wrong.

There are so many things that we do from day to day to try to score favor with God.  We read our bible, we go to church, we play worship songs, but what we fail to see is that God is far more interested in what’s going on in our hearts, and far less interested about what we are doing externally.  We can’t fool God.  God knows us more intimately than we can ever imagine, so there is no use in pretending to be a changed person when we know in our heart that the sin we are committing is a sin we don’t plan on giving up.

What we need to do is follow the example of people like David.  We need to reach deep inside and understand what we have done is wrong.  We need to understand the sin we are committing, no matter how private it is, is not hidden from God’s eyes, and it is, despite what we sometimes want to believe, affecting our relationship with Him.  We need to ask for God’s mercy and His conviction.  We need to want to stop doing what we are doing and accept Christ’s sacrifice on the cross as the forgiveness for that sin.  We need to let Jesus mend the relationship between God and us.  Most importantly, we need to be humble enough to admit we do wrong, that we aren’t strong enough to stop sinning on our own and that we need God’s help.  We need to be repentant, not just in our words, but also in our hearts.  This is where the forgiveness of sins becomes not just possible but real.

Jesus will free us of sin’s hold on us, and its power over us.  God will send the conviction of the Holy Spirit reminding us that we don’t want to slip when we get into a dangerous place, and because of God’s love for us and our broken spirit, we can be free from the sin that has been holding us back.

God wants our broken spirit.

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If you haven’t checked out Mikey’s blog, chronicling his journey with cancer, check it out at thisisawareness.wordpress.com.  If you have, keep checking it!  He told me that the third installment is coming up in a very short time! The third installment of his story is up now! Thanks, Mikey.