A Pure Heart

This week has been really awesome! Tons of adventures and new experiences with new people! Thursday night our house hiked to an area kinda close to the waterfall where there are glow worms. I totally felt like an explorer as we're tromping through the jungle at night with it pitch black except for our flashlights. The glow worms were awesome! Something that only God could have created. The stars here are breath taking. We spent some time as a house last night after our hike to just enjoy the stars. Being that we are in the countryside, there is almost no light pollution, so the stars are just brilliant. I think we even pointed out a planet because things are so clear.

At the house, we have so much fun. We eat a lot of eggs for breakfast, and we always have faces drawn on the eggs. This morning Cason and I (Noga helped at the end) drew the new faces on the eggs, so it just so happened that Monster appeared on some ;)

Wednesday-Friday, we spent time as a school sharing life stories and praying for each person that shared. We essentially prayed for 8 hours a day, split with a lunch break in the middle. I have never prayed so much in my life, and praying for 8 hours is exhausting. All of us at the house called ourselves the grandma's because we were in bed by 9pm every night (Wednesday night I was asleep with the lights on in the room at 8:15......). But it has been so powerful to see people gain insight and inner healing, including myself. It has really knit us closer together as a school and a group, which is awesome.

This week during our "Intimacy with God," aka: quiet time, I, personally, have been hanging out in Psalm 51:10-12. I can't say that I have an new revelations different from anyone else, but I'm fascinated with how much dependence on God is shown in those few verses. "Create in me a pure heart....grant me a willing spirit." First and foremost, David recognizes that he cannot do it himself- he cannot make his heart pure, he cannot conjure up a willing spirit. He recognizes an absolute dependence on God to make these things happen. I love the last line, "...grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." David recognized that an obstinate, stubborn spirit is not life sustaining, it only brings frustration and chaos. I've learned that lesson one too many times.

This morning, as I was hanging out at the "pure heart" part, I asked God what exactly that looked like. What is pure heart exactly? Listening to all of the life stories and knowing my own, I had that question of what exactly does that look like? When David wrote this Psalm, it was after he had committed adultery, so what is a pure heart? There are things in life that cannot be erased exactly, though they may be forgiven and wiped clean. I think God answered my question in the absolutely most unexpected way. We sat down for lunch today, and I sat down next to Elana, who is 10. She is the daughter of the DTS director. Their family lives close to the base, and it is not uncommon to see her and her brother running around. Note too that I have never spoken to Elana before lunch today; I had simply seen her around. I sat down and asked her name (because I couldn't remember what it was) and how old she was, and introduced myself. She picks up this little stem of baby daffodils that she had just picked from the garden, and she hands them to me to smell. I told her how beautiful the were and how good they smell. She then passes them to Cason, who is sitting right next to me to smell. Afterward, Elana takes them and places them in my hair for me to keep. It blew me away. These were her flowers. She had just picked them, and she freely without question, without explanation, gives them away in just a loving, kind, gentle way. If that is not a pure heart, then I don't know what is. Maybe a pure heart is loving people in the most genuine way. If David had genuinely loved Bathsheba, then he wouldn't have committed adultery with her because he would have honored her and respected her and seen her the way that God sees her. A heart like Elana's is a pure heart.

My prayer this week has been those verses in Psalm 51, that God would create a pure heart within me, that would grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.