I have a series of Bible verses that I pray during my morning devotion time and I noticed something about one section of them. The verses come from Psalm 51 where King David was praying with a repentive spirit and I could just see David bowing before the Lord with his petitions. I also noticed that these requests could be set in a certain order, a process, that I could use to pray my prayer of repentance. I hope that this will be helpful to others as we go to God with confession and repentance.

The first step in the process, to me, seemed to be verse 11 where King David was confessing his sin and saying, “Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.” He knew he had sinned, (we do too), and he didn’t want to be separated from God. The second step is verse 7a, “Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean.” To me, purifying is something that is done on the inside as well as step three, verse 10a, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” David is asking God to clean up the inside and make him a new heart. Our hearts are important, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23). Then, having been purified and with a clean heart, David asks in verse 10b, “Renew a loyal spirit within me.” This speaks of a loving, loyal attitude that David wanted to be renewed within himself.

Step four turns to the outside, “wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.”, verse 7b. David did not want anything to show on the outside that would dim the light of God he wanted to be visible for others to see. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16). In step 5, David asks God to, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation,” verse 12a. He had been grieving about his sin and wanted to be restored to the joy he had previously experienced from God’s salvation. Then the last step in the process, step 6 in verse 12b, has King David asking God to, “make me willing to obey you.” As a former player and coach, I could see an athlete who wants to please the coach and be the best that they can be saying, “Coach, tell me what to do and make me do it!” David was willing to give God permission to make him do whatever was necessary to obey Him. That is a prayer we need to pray as well.

This six-step process can be life changing for us as God’s people when we fail, to repent and return to the place we need to be in order to follow God on the Path of Life.