I am a woman of unclean lips

Some things that are harder to learn than others, some lessons we keep needing to be reminded of. Or at least I do...

I am a follower of Jesus. I have chosen to trust him for my salvation, knowing that I can't achieve it myself because I am just not capable of living up to God's standards. I am human. Not a particularly awful human like, say, Hitler; not a particularly wonderful human like... no, I'm not going to try and pick an example. The point is, I'm just an ordinary human, not especially evil and not especially good, just the usual sort of mix. Sometimes I'm nice and pleasant and show kindness to people; sometimes I'm horrible and hurt people. And of course sometimes I've got the desire inside me to be horrible and hurt people but I keep it in check and don't act on it - which is, of course, better than acting on it, but it doesn't make me any less horrible on the inside.

In my head I know that this is the state of play: my heart has lots of horrible stuff inside, and it's only with the help of my Saviour that I can slowly change for the better, but I am never (or at least, not during this life) going to become perfect and pure, there will always be horrible stuff in my heart and I will always have to keep turning to him and asking him to clean me up, and I will always have to keep trusting in his sacrificial death as the atonement for my sins. The trouble is, it's a very humbling place to be, and my heart is very proud and wants to pretend that I can do it myself, it wants to pretend that I'm not so bad really...

I got into the car this afternoon to drive to the supermarket. I switched the tape player on and heard a beautiful song of praise to Jesus and thought: I don't feel like what this song is saying, I'm too full of anger and resentment about some issue that's been annoying me so there's no room in my heart for beautiful praise - even though God is God and he deserves my praise all the time, no matter what else is going on.

The next thing on that tape was that bit from Isaiah: woe is me... I am a man of unclean lips... and my eyes have seen the King...

Dear Isaiah - I am your sister. I am a woman of unclean lips and an unclean heart, but through the amazing gift of Jesus I've been allowed into the presence of the King of Kings, and it is awesome and humbling and I keep needing that coal from the fire to cleanse me. And I keep having to remind myself that through the sacrifice of my Saviour I can know that as that last verse says, my iniquity is taken away and my sin is forgiven.

Hearing the songs and recognising that I didn't feel like praising - it made me feel really uncomfortable - but there is some discomfort which is actually good for me, it's useful if it gets me to turn to God and ask for his help.