White as Snow

This past winter in NYC we were blanketed with almost a foot and a half of snow. My daughter and I went out to play in the easily pack able snow. It was pristeen white. Beautiful, not a blemish, not walked upon (and thankfully no yellow snow). We began to make huge snow balls and throw them around.

We found a spot by the curb where snow began melting, and obviously it was slush. Muddy, dirty, nasty slush. So we began throwing the pure white snow into the nasty mess.  Then we began something very very unique. We stopped throwing the boulder sized snow into the dirty nasty water. We began gently placing the boulder sized snow into the murky water.

A fascinating thing occurs. What ends up happening is the dirty water slowly begins moving its way up the snow. Depending on the size of the snow ball, depended on rate the murky water completely engulfed the beautiful snow.  If it was a bigger snow ball, it took longer, if it was a small snow ball, it took seconds (side note: this is a great analogy to use with kids on how sin can slowly take over)

The bible says this in Psalms 51:7 as a prayer “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter then snow”. Hyssop is defined as a small bushy plant of the mint family. A wild shrub. The prayer of the Psalmist here is that God would wash him whiter then snow. Have you ever seen snow in an open field, untouched, so white that it was almost blinding? That should be our prayer.

Sometimes what we do is we pray out of this guilt of the action. We don’t want God to necessarily wash us, we want Him to merely forgive us, and move us past our guilt. This is the way the slow process of the murky water can devour us. Slowly. Because were not looking to be “purged”. Were looking for God to “just’ say its OK. Which He does. But true, honest, victory will come, when our hearts say enough, and our souls cry for to be restored to the whiteness which God desired them to be.

Keep fighting

Jimmy