Trying to do life alone?

Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer. (James 1:13-15)

Did you realize that sin actually grows in the dark? That is why it is so wrong for us to hide our sin - in the dark it has a greater chance of growing. We lust and that leads to looking - looking leads to action - trying to stop leads to us thinking about that sin time and time again. It is a cyclical thing. Shame makes us want to hide our sin - but that is the worst thing we can do when we sin. Don't conceal your sin - confess it. Sin needs to be brought into the light in order to be free from it. "You can’t whitewash your sins and get by with it; you find mercy by admitting and leaving them." (Proverbs 28:13) Confessing your sins to God brings forgiveness and cleansing - healing comes when we confess our sins in honesty to others. We are not meant to live this Christian walk alone - because we cannot fight the appeal of sin on our own. We need the accountability that comes when we 'partner together' to overcome sin in our lives.

We deal with this 'internal' temptation to given into sin in community with others who know how to walk close to Jesus. We find we are not fighting alone - we have others fighting along with us. As we 'fight together' we are sending the enemy into flight in large ways. Emotional healing comes when we stop hiding our sin and begin to realize we have help from others who walk with us while we are fighting our sin. Sin is a killer unless we deal with it - hiding it doesn't deal with it - it just attempts to cover it up. The peace we crave comes when we stop concealing our sin. We are only as strong over our sin as we are honest about our sin. That scares a whole bunch of us, doesn't it? Honesty about what we struggle with the most is tough business, but as long as we conceal our sin we allow it to grow - to continue to entice us from within.

Some of us are intent about living free of our sin - some of us are 'kind of intent' - when we partner with one who is more intent than we are, we find our level of accountability is brought to a new level. We begin to set new limits on our temptation - we stop hiding that sin and bring it into the light. A pastor friend once told me we will always seek to hide until we are surrounded by others who don't hide. It is a lot easier to stop hiding when we begin to allow others to see our 'real' life and who live 'real' lives themselves. If we have a tendency to always hide our sin, we may be hanging around with a group of others who also are hiding their sin. Remember, when we are with someone who craves righteousness, we find we are freer to crave the same things.

Sin needs not only forgiveness - it needs healing. Sin's forgiveness comes through Christ - at the foot of the cross. Sin's healing comes in community together - as we partner together with others who crave righteousness (freedom from sin). Eventually the appeal of sin will become less and less in our lives - because the appeal of righteousness will be greater and greater. God guides our steps toward confession, but he also guides our steps toward healing. Don't try to do life alone - it isn't going to end well. Just sayin!

No escape plan for me

Have you ever hidden so well in that old time game of hide & seek so that you were absolutely unable to be discovered? That which is hidden is not visible - it isn't easily perceived, or has little to no evidence it even exists. If we are playing a kid's game, being hidden in such a manner ensures that you will be declared the 'winner' of the game. In real life, always hiding so well isn't going to ensure you 'win', is it? It just means you remain undiscovered! When our hiding place is in God himself, it isn't that we aren't able to be discovered - it is just that his barrier of protection over our lives is so impenetrable that nothing can get at us! 

You are my hiding place and my battle-covering. I put my hope in Your Word. (Psalm 119:114)

When times challenge us a little, do we turn to God as our covering, or do we simple hunker down a little in some 'place' we have designed for ourselves as a means of escape? I daresay there are a lot of people who merely go through life with an 'escape plan' always at the ready. They don't have any real 'battle-covering' they can rely upon - but merely wing it. When times get harder than they would like them to be, they resort to whatever escape plan they have concocted. Now, this may work for a while, but if you are always 'escaping' rather than facing challenges head-on, the battles don't go away - they just are hidden from our view for a while.

When God is our covering - our battle isn't 'blocked from our view' - it is faced head-on. We can rest in the assurance his covering is sufficient to take us right through that battle, no holds barred. It is one thing to be in the battle and fighting well, but quite another to have been in the battle so long that you become weary and worn by the constant demands of the warfare, though. That's why God is both our 'battle-covering' (protection in the fight) and our hiding place (protection so we can rest a while). Escaping into his restful hiding place isn't escaping the battle - it is regenerating our abilities to continue the fight.

We need both, don't we? We cannot always go through life with an 'escape plan', but we can go through it with the knowledge God will be both our shield and defender when the battle rages hot and heavy, and a source of comfort and healing when we just need a moment or two to regroup. We aren't escaping the battle whenever we retreat because he meets us right there in the midst of the battle and just provides a shelter for us right there. One who retreats into a full escape mode isn't sticking around for the battle - they are working to be clearly out of it entirely. One who retreats into the hidden shelter of his wings is merely allowing him to hold them steady in the midst of it. Just sayin!

When the boat is a rockin' ...

Are you a 'runner'? You know - that one who finds something just too hard, or totally unimaginable for the asking - so instead of embracing what is right there in front of you to do, you turn tail and run the other way. The worst form of 'running' is when it is away from God - away from obedience. Running away from God is seldom the answer to our problems. In fact, the harder and farther we run, the worse the problems seem to be magnified in our lives. Try as we might, God really cannot be escaped! There is just no hiding place from God! That said, why do so many of us try to get away from what he asks of us? It may be stubbornness (AKA pride), fear (AKA mistrust), or apathy (AKA not really caring). The worst part about 'running' from God is that others usually get wrapped up in the results of our 'running'. We may not have intended it to happen, but they are affected by our actions - even when they result in inaction!

Then they grilled him: "Confess. Why this disaster? What is your work? Where do you come from? What country? What family?" He told them, "I'm a Hebrew. I worship God, the God of heaven who made sea and land." At that, the men were frightened, really frightened, and said, "What on earth have you done!" As Jonah talked, the sailors realized that he was running away from God. (Jonah 1:8-10 The Message)

After boarding the ship to Tarshish, in clearly outright disobedience to what God had asked Jonah to do, there comes a huge storm that overwhelms the sailors and they are about to lose everything as a result of the tormenting seas. Amazingly, Jonah is able to sleep through the calamity his disobedience seems to be bringing into the lives of all the others around him - there is not one iota of guilt he has about his disobedience - at least not enough to keep him awake in a harrowing storm! Have you ever stopped to consider this? As I read this passage today, I had to stop and pause over this one. Look at where we find Jonah - in the depths of the ship - down deep into the hull of the ship. He is not just content to "get away from God", he is in deep hiding from those around him, as well! This is probably more telling about what really happens when we run from God - we feel the need to "duck and take cover" wherever we think we will not be discovered! This has been the pattern observed since the beginning of time. Adam and Eve ducked into the bushes and "made cover" in order to take cover! What comes as a surprise to me is just how comfortable Jonah was in his disobedience! He actually slept through the storm!

It is truly a dangerous place to find oneself - so comfortable in our outright disobedience that we just don't see the effect it has on those around us, much less the effect it has on us! Sometimes we think our disobedience only affects us, but I want to challenge each of us here just a little bit. Our disobedience has far-reaching effects, sometimes quite unrealized by us until it is too late to do much about it. We may not fully appreciate the impact it has on those God has placed in our lives - our loved ones, our friends, and even those God just brings across our paths for brief periods of time. Jonah did not know these folks on his trip to Tarshish - they were just innocently headed to the next sea port, unaware of the hazards which were just ahead for them. The truth is quite plain - no man is an island unto himself! Sin has an effect - on us and others! Here's the thing I want us to see this morning - Jonah was discovered (found out) by those on the journey with him. The moment comes when we will be discovered - the question is really who will do the discovery. Will it be God, personally touching us, and us responding to him? Or will it be someone God brings across our path, opening our eyes to our "running"? Either way works, but I tend to think the first way is a little better!

The grace of God cannot allow us to hide forever - God will find a place, a time, and a way to bring the discovery of our "running" to light for us - we cannot stay in the hull of the ship forever. I know this for a fact in my own life - every time I have "run for cover", the discovery of my hiding place is pretty much assured and it will be in pretty short order. I also know this - God's grace is sufficient! Whenever we realize we are running from God, the opportunity also exists to run "directly into his open arms" of grace! No sin is too great - no amount of disobedience too far reaching for his arms to encircle us. No shame is too deep - no amount of sin's effect too hard for him to restore! It may be your moment of uncovering your sin - your moment of being "discovered" today. If so, don't turn and run - reach out and be embraced! His grace awaits. Just sayin!

Better than the bushes

Do you remember playing that simple game of "hide and seek", running wildly around the house or yard, trying to find just the right hiding place?  Back in the day, we had a great neighborhood for hiding. We had 13 citrus trees in our yard, not to mention a huge mulberry tree, and two pretty impressive sized junipers just as you turned into the driveway to our house. All provided ample hiding space for one who could scurry up the trunk and into the cover of the leaves, or scooch way down inside the juniper's ample cover fast enough. In addition to this, we had all kinds of hiding places behind the pigeon coop, around the pool area, behind the garage, and even behind a row of shiny silver trash cans. Yet, as I recall all the places I hid, none was as safe as the place I run to now when I just need a little 'hiding out' from life's challenges!

God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him. We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in sea storm and earthquake, before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains. Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us. (Psalm 46:1-3)

We all have "hiding places" we run to from time to time - either because we feel threatened, or we just need a good place to get away from it all. Some are more skilled at this "hiding" thing than others are - try as we might, we just cannot seem to find them when they "duck for cover" or crawl into that place of 'hiding' that they frequent. The problem with most of our "hiding" places is the "purpose" behind our need to hide in the first place! Sometimes we hide because the guilt of our sin seems too big. At others, we hide simply because the "work" of being exposed is just too much - we'd have to keep an eye on our facade of being righteous just a little too closely for our liking! Probably one of the most telling reasons for hiding is the tendency we all have to feel "inferior" to someone else - so we hide what we see as our flaws and imperfect abilities from others.

Regardless of why we are hiding, we need to recognize there is only one safe place to "hide". The purpose of hiding is to prevent something from being discovered. The only "safe" place where we can be who we really are is in the presence of God. Yet, we run for all kinds of other "cover" instead of the one place where we can just "let down our hair" and be "real". Why? I think it may be as simple as us thinking our "cover" is working! Look at our passage again. God is a safe place to hide - not to conceal us, but to help us when we are in a place of need. It is in the very presence of God where we are changed - our need to conceal becomes void because he is able to change what we desire to cover-up! He is even a safe place for one to seek! Hide or seek - he is it!

I know many of my readers face challenging times today. There are battles with cancer, the depression of significant loss of one form or another, the inward and constant pull of some secret sin, or perhaps the exhaustion of trying to be all things to everyone in your life. Regardless of the challenge we face, we have but one 'good option' - run to God. Hide in him for a while. In your "running for HIS cover", you are running right into what will meet your every need. No tree, bush, shed, or other "hiding place" really could have done the same for me back in the day as this 'cover' I can find in him today! He has truly become my place for not only hiding, but also for my seeking. We desire to stand fearless on the "cliff-edge" of the challenge before us, don't we? Courage seems to slip through our fingers as sand slowly falling through the hourglass. We just don't know how to get a grip on what has us in the fight of our lives. Here's the secret - run to God. He knows! Seems too simple, doesn't it, but it really isn't. When we run to the place where we are safe to be exactly who and what we are, we are open to receive the very thing we need to embrace to face the challenge head-on.

It is in being "real" with God, in the secret place of his refuge, that we are able to "get real" with the things and people we deal with today. God already knows we fear the "cliff-edge" - we do ourselves no favors by covering up or denying our fear. He already knows the storms are heavy upon us - we do not "ride them out" by trying to row against the winds! Instead, we "sail through them" by allowing him to direct our sails. Run to the only hiding place where all things good are at your disposal - God's presence. Afraid to? Don't be! His grace is sufficient to forgive your sin, his love fills every gap in your behavior, and his heart is always towards his children! His joy stuns our senses with the awesomeness of renewal and awakening. His peace settles the rushing waves of doubt and fear which seek to overwhelm our minds. His healing touch energizes our frailness with renewed vitality. No better hiding (or seeking) place, indeed! Just sayin!