Thursday Hymn Reflection: “Create in Me”

With words taken directly from three verses of Psalm 51, “Create in Me” has become an often-sung song among many folks, but especially young people. It is one of my favorite songs, as I always like songs that quote Scripture.

Psalm 51 was written in the aftermath of David’s affair with Bathsheba, and all that relationship led to. Finally, Nathan came before David and David admitted to the sin. Nearly every scholar agrees the words of this 19-verse psalm were written soon after this admission of sin.

What makes “Create in Me” such a powerful song is that it is a song in which the singer is admitting deep guilt and is begging God for full forgiveness. Lines such as “Cast me not away from your presence, O Lord” show us how deeply we should be touched by the guilt of sin.

When I think of this song, I do have one reservation. While this is true of all songs, there are some that it is more easily applied to. We need to be very careful that we mean what we sing! This is not a song to be sung “lightly.” It is a song that needs to touch the depth of our heart and a song that should truly make us think more deeply about what sin really is and what it really does. If you don’t really want to be restored to God, please don’t parrot these words.

While songs of penitence have been sung for a long time, it is refreshing to take these deeply penitent words directly from David’s stylus, and put them as our own thoughts.

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Enjoy this recording of the song.