Hello, and welcome to Enbolden, living a bold Christian life. I'm Chris Shutter, an ordinary Christian living with and learning about an extraordinary God. Thank you for joining me on spending 30 days of praising God. Today's praise verse comes from Psalm 23, 1 through 3.
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lay down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul.
A couple of ladies in one of my Bible study groups have had workmen at their houses this year. If you've ever had people working on your house, you probably have already conjured up the trials and delays you experienced. It seems inevitable. So often promises are made and quickly broken from timeframes to costs.
One of these ladies missed Bible study one day to be at home for a painter who had not completed the work he said he'd do the day before. That next day, during Bible study, the painter arrived only to tell her he was going to go to another job instead, and just needed to pick up his ladder. After multiple delays, the painter fired my friend. Yes, you read that correctly.
After asking him to give her a better idea of the actual time frame, the painter called her up and said he just couldn't work with her. Thank goodness when we need work done on our hearts and minds, God is a much more trustworthy repairman. And today I praise God for refreshing us, for fixing our missteps, for repairing our souls. I was recently talking with a friend about forgiveness, and what came out of that was the need not only to forgive, but to ask God to help repair our hearts and minds of all those negative associated emotions that just seemed to hang on.
Forgiveness? Well, it's not an easy task when we've been hurt, abused, taken advantage of, or maybe even when things or people have taken taken from us. And so we give it to God to help us forgive. I wonder, however, how often when we forgive others, do we still have that little residual bitterness or pain or guilt left in us?
I find this often the case for me when it comes to having to forgive myself. When something triggers a bad memory, I kind of cringe a bit, and that demon called guilt or shame wants to raise its ugly head. And God doesn't want us to just forgive, but to live a life of forgiveness, a life free from that guilt and shame and bitterness. All of it, not one single tiny pocket of it left in our hearts.
I was reading Psalm 51, and it has so many great prayers to God for restoration and healing. Here's a couple verses. Verse 2, wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from sin. Verse 7, cleanse me with hissep, and I will be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. In verse 12, restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. God, thankfully, he has a 1-800 repairman hotline. He not only answers 24-7, he jumps into action when needed.
It's time to ask God to completely remove those negative emotions from our past, to be completely renewed, to be completely healed. C.S. Lewis in his book, Mirror Christianity, said once, A Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin again after each stumble, because the Christ's life is inside him, repairing him all the time. Isn't God so loving and so unique in this trait?
He lives as our own mini repairman, right in our souls. We don't need to wait for the next appointment, which, you know, normally would be about three to four weeks. And we don't need to be disappointed when he doesn't show up, because he will show up. All we need to do is ask God to fix us.
And even when we aren't sure exactly what the problem is, if we ask him to make a diagnosis, he will free of charge. I know that I'll mess up and break some things in my life. I also know that when I gave my life over to Christ, I got a lifetime warranty. All repairs covered upon asking.
Have a forgiven day today, friends. I'd love to hear from you and find out more about how you are living out your bold Christian life. You can find me on Instagram at embolden minus the O or at my blog at embolden.net.