Let It Snow

I

 love snow!  I love to watch it fall!  I love to catch it on my tongue!  I love to walk in it!  Are you seeing a pattern here?  I LOVE the stuff!  When I was a kid, the mere mention of the word would send me into a frenzy.  I would religiously watch the television for the promise that we would be out of school the following day.  During the night, I would wake up and check the window several times to see if it had started and how much had accumulated on the ground.  The next day, I spent with friends outside sledding, building snowmen, and having snowball fights.

As I grew older, I loved it even more.  As a teacher, I was more excited than my kids about the prospects of missing school.  You know, some habits just die hard!!  However, as an adult, I appreciated the snow's beauty more than when I was a kid.  I remember taking long walks at 2:00 a.m. while the snow was falling.  At such moments, the snow moved me to deep thought.  I remember saying to myself, "If ever one could touch silence, I believe it would be a snowflake."  During the evening hours, as the snow fell and accumulated, everything took on a different appearance.  Things that were once mundane and unattractive, became unimaginably beautiful. Overnight, the world was transformed from the ordinary to the extraordinary. 

Our scripture lesson today comes from Psalm 51 and is one of the great prayers of the Bible.  Here, David asks God for forgiveness from his sins.  David was guilty of an adulterous affair with Bathsheba and of murder.  Notice his words in verse seven, "Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow." Could there be a more accurate illustration of salvation than this?  David is asking for his sins to be removed and for his life to be washed clean and made white, whiter than snow!

Nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ can satisfy this request.  When we come to God, we do so with a heart that is black and spotted with the stain of sin.  Nothing we say or do will take away this stain.  We are not good enough and never will be.  Our good intentions aren't enough, our deeds aren't adequate, our family tree isn't impressive enough, our thoughts aren't pure enough, and our righteousness isn't good enough to make us acceptable to God.  In fact, the scriptures say in Isaiah 64:6, "We are all infected and impure with sin. When we proudly display our righteous deeds, we find they are but filthy rags..."(New Living Translation) When viewed this way, we can easily understand David's plea for God to wash him and make him whiter than snow!!

Like a young child who desperately wants to play in the snow, David wanted to regain the excitement and the happiness that accompanied his salvation experience. In verse 12 of this same psalm he says, "Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you." David rightly recognized that his joy and his salvation came from the Lord.  He also realized that he could not live an acceptable without God's help.  Only God could give David a willing heart, only God could wash him and make him clean.  Only God's grace and

forgiveness could make David's heart whiter than snow!  Is it snowing where you are today?