Wash away all my evil
    and make me clean from my sin! Remove my sin, and I will be clean;
    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. – Psalm 51:2,7 GNT

What a cry from David asking God to forgive him and wipe him clean of his sin. It is what I am called to do too. Jesus purchased my forgiveness – paid the full price for it. That does not mean I have nothing to do in this regard – in other words, it does not remove my responsibility to ask for it. But I am confident when I ask, the answer will be “yes.” Each day I look to the mercy of God and each day God forgives me and makes me clean.

If I was to take a piece of paper (or maybe a few pieces) and write done all the sins I feel are trapping me, I would be identifying what is actually holding me back in my race as I follow Jesus. If I was to write the names of people I surround myself with who weaken me and who, just by being with them, do not free me from these trappings but enhance them, I need to note the time that I have wasted and thrown away.

As for us, we have this large crowd of witnesses around us. So then, let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way, and of the sin which holds on to us so tightly, and let us run with determination the race that lies before us.- Hebrews 12:1 GNT

Now that I have a list, it would be great to pray my way through them. Words like resolving, dismantling, resisting and breaking would be appropriate action words I would be using. If by chance I find myself saying that I cannot change – would that be insinuating that God cannot walk with me?

I will need to make another list – one about the superiority of Jesus, the power of His death and resurrection and the power of prayer. I would have to put other peoples names on that list – people who could and would pray for me – people I can trust. I might even want them to check on me and support me.

Prayer brings with it, as food does, a new sense of power and health. We are driven to it by hunger, and, having eaten, we are refreshed and strengthened for the battle which even our physical life involves. For heart and flesh cry out for the living God. God’s gift is free; it is, therefore, a gift to our freedom, i.e. renewal to our moral strength, to what makes men of us. Without this gift always renewed, our very freedom can enslave us. The life of every organism is but the constant victory of a higher energy, constantly fed, over lower and more elementary forces. Prayer is the assimilation of a holy God’s moral strength.

We must work for this living. To feed the soul we must toil at prayer. And what a labour it is! “He prayed in an agony.” We must pray even to tears if need be. Our cooperation with God is our receptivity; but it is an active, a laborious receptivity, an importunity that drains our strength away if it do not tap the sources of the Strength Eternal. We work, we slave, at receiving. To him that hath this laborious expectancy it shall be given. Prayer is the powerful appropriation of power, of divine power. It is therefore creative. – P.T. Forsyth, Soul of Prayer