a clean heart

This morning, as I gazed over the mill pond on Diascund Creek, I was also reading about having a clean heart. (Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart;  Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.)  I thought about how I'd generally seen the need to confess sin as an end in itself...it is necessary to be cleaned when you're dirty.  I know it is inevitable that my thoughts and actions will stray and there is the need to deal with that tendency.  But this morning I saw that having a heart that is clean is not important just because of the absence of sin, but because it makes a close walk with our Lord possible.  Just as a smudged window obscures the most beautiful of scenes from view, so a heart that has spiritual dirt is smudged and we cannot see, feel or hear the Lord.  I felt a renewed desire to houseclean my heart frequently, that I might know Him better!   blessings, Rob Smith