Verse of the Day for April 5

David wrote this after Bathsheba and after Nathan confronted him, which means it is a prayer written by a man with no defence left.

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Create is the strong word — bara, the verb used in Genesis 1 for making something out of nothing. He does not ask for the heart to be cleaned. He asks for one to be made.

That is an admission. Cleaning implies there is something serviceable underneath. Creating implies there is not.

And what he asks for next is the part people miss: restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Not the salvation — he does not think he has lost that. The joy of it.

Sin does not usually remove someone's faith. It removes the gladness from it, and leaves them going through motions they still believe in.

He asks for the gladness back by name.

The prayer of a man with no defence is the most useful prayer in the psalms, because it does not attempt any.

If your faith has gone joyless rather than absent, ask for what he asked for.