Hey, God, I need your help

O Lord, I give my life to you. I trust in you, my God! Do not let me be disgraced, or let my enemies rejoice in my defeat. No one who trusts in you will ever be disgraced, but disgrace comes to those who try to deceive others. (Psalm 25:1-3)

If you have ever approached God with a bit of 'hey, God, I need your help' prayers, then you know how it is to feel a bit useless, helpless, and at risk for some reason. There is absolutely no better place to take your 'hey, God, I need your help' issues, for he is the only one capable to meet those needs. No one who trusts in God to help will ever be disappointed, or stand in the midst of the battle disgraced or defeated.

Disgrace might be the loss of respect for some, but it can also be the feeling of shame that comes from doing something we might now find ourselves regretting painfully. God's answer to that feeling of shame is repentance - to turn away from whatever brought those feelings and embrace his grace. There is absolutely no room for shame where grace exists and it exists in the presence of God. The 'hey, God, I need your help' prayer is exactly what begins to bathe us in that grace.

When we feel ashamed or like we aren't exactly 'right' with God or others, we might want to hide from them rather than open up to them. That is never going to begin the work of restoration, though. We need to trust God to hear our cry for help, listen intently to our heart, and then to begin to minister to us exactly as we need in order to be restored to right standing with him and others. Deceive others by covering over your 'wrong actions' that left you feeling a bit 'outside of grace' and you will never be at peace. Bring those actions to God first, then go to the other who you have been trying to deceive by your 'cover-up' God will be there to help because you trusted him to bring grace right there into the midst of that issue. Just saying!

Have you ever...

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” (Romans 1:16-17)

Have you ever been 'ashamed' of something you have said, done, or believed? I have and it didn't leave me feeling all that good! Why? Shame has a way of 'eating at you'. You feel 'guilty' all the time, and your emotions range from embarrassment to inferiority. Somehow, the enemy of our soul is delighted anytime there is this fear of dishonor, a sense of disgrace, emotions of disappointment, and feelings of extreme condemnation. This is not the way God wants us to live. He wants us to shed our shame as we come to him for when sin has been erased, shame has no place. 

There might be times when we feel a bit 'ashamed' to admit that Christ has been at work in our lives. It is as though we don't want to be 'judged' by others when God has pinpointed something in us that he wants to work on and heal. Why do we do this to ourselves? God's plan was always to have us in relationship with other believers - as support, encouragement, and advisors to live a godly and wholesome life. When we fear what they will think of us, how they will treat us 'differently' once they 'know' what God is working on, we give into Satan's plan to keep us isolated and without that support that comes within community.

The thing we must keep in mind is that salvation (saying yes to Jesus) was just the door opening to a dynamic way of living. Shame has no place there, but sometimes it takes a bit to convince our minds that the work begun in our hearts by Jesus is changing the way we see ourselves, how others see us, and most importantly - how God the Father sees us. There should never be shame in telling others the joy we have found in our salvation. We don't hesitate to tell others about the latest fads or diets, so why do we hesitate to tell others what God has been doing in our lives. It is likely a pride thing - because when we 'cop to the plea' of sinner, we fear others will see us in a different light.

When we say yes to Jesus, the 'difference' seen isn't anything we should be ashamed of - it is life, light, and goodness expressed in the totally undeserved grace of God within our lives. Satan my try to make us feel the shame of our past, but God's good news is that there is no condemnation (shame) for those who are in Christ Jesus. Just sayin!

Filthy?

Troubles multiply for those who chase after other gods. (Psalm 16:4) 

As we are reminded in Proverbs 17, "Sensible people keep their eyes glued on wisdom, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth. Foolish children bring grief to their father and bitterness to the one who gave them birth." (vs. 24-25) Run away from God and toward anything else that we embrace in place of God in our lives, and we will soon know the bitterness that comes from pursuing these 'false gods'. Kids do a wide variety of things that parents may label as 'sweet', 'cute', or 'precious', but God will always label our wayward desire to put anything else in his place in our lives as 'sin'. Reject God by not putting him in his right place as Lord of our lives and we will soon reap the 'reward' of that rebellious spirit - the consequences may not be all that kind to us. If you have been anything like me, you might just know there is a certain amount of deep sorrow and regret that accompanies rebellion. Try as we might, we cannot escape the sorrow that accompanies sinful pursuits. We can try to escape them, but the truth of the matter is that sin leaves a 'tell-tale sign' of its presence. It is like walking down a dusty path, not even noticing just how much dust is gathering about our ankles until we strip away the shoes and socks. All of a sudden, we realize the 'filth' of the journey!

The 'filth' was 'unseen' as long as we were walking that path, but as soon as we broke from that path, attempting to recover from the journey, we notice the unsightly 'filth' that has gathered. Sin is like that - we follow the path for as long as we want and then when we attempt to 'recover' from the journey down that path, we begin to notice just how much 'filth' has gathered inside of us. We begin to sense regret and perhaps even a bit of guilt. We might dwell on that regret and guilt over and over again, leading us to feel a great deal of shame over having taken sin's path. Filth upon filth - guilt and shame. As much as we want to wash away the dirt of the dusty trail, we desire to be free of the filth of our sins. Chase after other 'gods' and you will soon notice the 'gathering filth' of that chase. We choose the path we will take - we choose who will be at the center of our lives. 

It could be we choose ourselves - wanting nothing more than to be the leader of our own lives. I daresay I have tried that pathway, and it didn't work out so well for me. We could choose to worship something else - like a career, material things, or even another person, but I will also tell you that pathway will have a 'dirt' all its own that will leave you feeling just as 'filthy'! We must not have any other 'god' in our lives - that is pretty clear in scripture. What do we do if we have allowed someone or something else to take God's place? We confess our sin, repent (turn away from it), and give him his rightful place. As we do, we will likely notice we need a good 'washing' in order to get rid of the filth we have allowed to gather. Repentance involves cleansing - so don't be afraid to be 'washed'. It is God's way of restoring the beauty he desires for each of us. Just sayin!

A load of guilt

Have you ever been in a spot where someone is trying to find a way to accuse you of something - doing nothing wrong, you are under attack and your reputation is taking one hit after another? Jesus healed the sick - that's not wrong. He fed the hungry - not wrong again. He reached out to the rejected, poor, and those society rejected - still not wrong. Yet, no matter how much 'good' he did, the religious leaders sought to find something - anything - they could 'use against him'. Why? He threatened them by his goodness, gentleness, gracefulness, and his claims to be God's Son. Threatened by truth - isn't that just like us to find something wrong with truth? No matter what, Jesus isn't going to compromise who he is or what he does. We can fight against truth all we want, but the more we fight against it, the harder it will be to resist it! 

As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”  They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger.  They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (John 8:3-11)

Demand an answer and you will get one - but it may not be the one you really wanted to hear! Imagine the disappointment and sheer embarrassment of standing up to Jesus, trying hard as you might to 'trip him up' with something you think you know better than him - then looking the fool for even trying it! That is what happened to these religious leaders that day - they put themselves out there, fell flat on their face, then had to walk away with their tails between their legs. It always amazes me how God uses truth to dispel fiction, grace to cause shame to flee, and hope to diminish our greatest fears. 

He with no sin - you may throw the first stone. Jesus knew very well that he was the ONLY ONE in the crowd that day without sin - only he could condemn this woman. No one ever considered he'd come back with that answer - so imagine THEIR shame when they had to walk away one by one! They had sought to shame her publicly, shame Jesus publicly, and find reason to imprison or kill him, but they left with nothing more than their own load of guilt to bear. I would imagine Jesus knew how much their 'load' would be as he spoke those words, but I also know that he made a way for each of them to leave that load right there, embrace him, and enter into the fullness of his grace. They just chose not to.

"Where are your accusers?" Many might stand against the truth, but none will be able to destroy it, for Jesus cannot be overtaken by anyone or anything. When we feel accused, shame mounting on every side, there is one place of hope that rises above the threats of our accuser - the feet of Jesus. She knew much sin, but she was about to know more peace and hope than she ever believed possible. "Go and sin no more" are key words - grace always being the starting point for us to live a new life. Grace never gives permission to sin again and again, it bids us to learn to live anew. Just sayin!

A vacuuming lesson

Do you think God wants to judge anyone 'guilty' as they stand before him? If you know anything about scripture, you will know it is quite the opposite - for God "did not send his Son into the world to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through him." (John 3:17) God's greatest joy is to receive us each into his great big family through the work of his Son, Jesus. If we desire to be free of guilt, we only need ask for that gift!

The Light has come into the world, but they did not want light. They wanted darkness, because they were doing evil things. All who do evil hate the light and will not come to the light, because it will show all the evil things they do. But those who follow the true way come to the light, and it shows that the things they do were done through God.” (John 3:19-21)

When we ask for light, we receive it and so much more. Grace comes in waves upon waves. Aren't you glad that grace is limitless? How is it that grace begins to do more than just remove our 'guilt' and 'shame'? Grace brings a new way of living - a new way of making choices - not for us, but according to God's will. How does God change our life from dark to light? By giving us the light that never goes out - the light that illuminates every area of our life, making it impossible to bury any of our guilt or shame any longer.

Grace has a way of digging up our guilt, bringing it to the surface so the light can finally take it away. As I was vacuuming this morning, I found if I kept the lights off in the room, using the very bright light on the vacuum to illuminate the path of the vacuum, I saw all the pieces of dirt that had been hidden with the other light on in the room. It took getting light close to the 'dirt' to actually expose it! Sometimes we may not feel all that comfortable having light shown into our 'darkest spots', but if we want to actually be rid of the 'dirt' once and for all, we may have to let God's light get closer to those areas than we might like!

Darkness, or even a dim light, has a way of concealing much that really needs to be dealt with, but remains a bit too well hidden. We might feel more comfortable with the dim light, but God wants us to have the brightest light possible - his Son! That way we will be able to be rid of the dirt that just serves to muck up our lives. Just sayin!

No more self-condemnation

All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God... God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So... we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first. If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers. (I John 4:15-21)

Fear of judgment - what might that look like? Constantly trying to 'do' better, but never really trusting in the work of Christ in your life. Thinking you must 'clean up your act' in order to approach the throne of God. As I said yesterday, you don't wash up before you take a shower - you let the shower do that work! Do you declare Jesus to be the Son of God, trust in his love for you as a sinner? This is the first step toward no longer 'fearing' judgment. Have you confessed your sins to him, acknowledging that you are indeed a sinner, in need of forgiveness? If so, you are on the path of right-living. Does that mean you will never make any mistakes again? Not hardly! We are human, facing many trials and temptations, and we will mess up on occasion.

The good news is that when we do, we have a path back through confession and what we call 'repentance' (turning away from that sin and turning toward God's help to overcome it). Don't live in fear of judgment just because you 'mess up' from time to time - go to God with it and let him wash you clean. Then move on - don't belabor the fact that you messed up. That only serves to bring you under the burden of self-condemnation and shame. These two don't belong in the life of a forgiven child of God. 

Maybe this is how we learn to love each other in this world - forgiving as God so graciously and lovingly forgives us each time we mess up. This world might be a better place if God's love was practiced a bit more, don't you think? Love might just begin with the act of forgiving someone who has wronged you. It could begin because you have wronged another, and they lovingly restore you with open arms. Either way, we are making a good start at being ambassadors of God's love in a hurting and messed up world. 

We might find the path of forgiveness hard to accept because we have lived for so long under the condemnation of our misdeeds. I have been guilty of doing that on occasion - remembering all the things I did wrong and how many people were likely hurt by my misdeeds. Condemnation of this sort is 'self-made' - it is not God inflicted. God doesn't leave us under a load of guilt and shame - his grace unburdens us from both, but we have to let go of the burden in order to be free of it. We might just help another see the immenseness of God's love when they see that transformation occur within our lives! Just sayin!

Above or better? Not!

Lord, have mercy on me...a sinner. Those words speak volumes. When we finally get past our pride and begin to see ourselves realistically, we are on the right path. Pride gets in our way so many times - giving us 'reason' and 'permission' to compare ourselves one with another. This is dangerous because these are faulty comparisons. As I have already said this week - there is no degree to sin - all sin is destructive to us and possibly even to others. Pride is hard to identify in our lives sometimes, but it is indeed a 'big deal'. 

He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’ “Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’” Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.” (Luke 18:9-14)

There are times when we are so confident WE can do something, but then when we fall on our faces, not accomplishing whatever it was we set out to accomplish we struggle with this thing called 'pride'. Why? WE thought we could do it in our own strength. I have tried many things in the workshop having watched a few YouTube videos of others who actually do woodworking as more than an occasional hobby and my results varied quite a bit. Why? I am not at their level of expertise! Pride is an elevation of ourselves to an unrealistic position. It is us saying we are better than another. When it comes to making some things out of wood, I am okay, but those others online are not just okay - they are doggone great at it!

Anytime we begin to compare, we are putting ourselves higher than another. We say, "At least I am not like...." We may not realize it at first, but we are somehow seeing ourselves as 'better than you'. Nobody does it like me...I am best at this...I am the most informed...I have the best relationship...and the list goes on and on. We don't always realize we are doing this - because some comparison we do is rather unconscious - we do it in our minds without even thinking about. Some of the problems we overlook in ourselves are the very things we focus so closely on in others. This can be a tell-tale sign we are struggling with this 'unconscious' pride thing.

The God we serve is the very one who can handle our failures - nothing separates us from his love. There are times we say we can handle all the stuff that comes up in our lives - but this is pride. We cannot handle life alone - we need to ask for help even when we don't think we need it. Maybe we struggle with pride more than we thought. We are pretty certain we can do life without really asking for direction from anyone - especially God. What a dangerous place to be - to stop taking life to God and doing it all on our own terms. Whenever we feel like we can handle life alone - we sin - and then we begin to feel shame - then we try to cover it up in our pride. See the ugly cycle there?

Pride isn't easy to see, and it can be even harder to acknowledge. We may feel shame, but covering up our failure is never going to work to make us feel any better. Rather than covering up, we need to ask for help. The humble are lifted up - they aren't stepped on by God and pushed even further down into their mire. We are lifted above the mire - not only lifted, but washed clean of the mire. It is one thing to be lifted - it is indeed another to be fully washed clean from the muck and mire of our sin. We all need the help of another - God is our first help and then he places others in our lives to continue to help us - as our accountability partners.

Sin cannot be rationalized. We are not above the rules. We are not able to handle life alone. We aren't always going to like our vulnerability when we confess our sins, but there is nothing more liberating than to get truly 'naked' before God and ask for his help with our pride. Covered up sin is just pride trying to 'dress up' the sin so it isn't as evident. God isn't fooled by the 'dressed up' version of our lives. In fact, he is more comfortable with our nakedness than we are! Just sayin!

Whose are you?

Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth. (Ephesians 1:7)

Abundantly free - how many of us live as though we were set free and now live free? Most of us struggle with some form of guilt (because we did something wrong) or shame (because we believe we are bad because we have done wrong). Guilt is meant to drive us to a place of repentance; shame just keeps us believing we will never 'measure up' and will always be lacking in some way. Either way, we are likely not living free if we are given to constant feelings of guilt and shame. We are never going to prove our worth in our own efforts. We cannot do all things - reinforcing our shame that we will never 'be enough'. 

We have all sinned - we are all inadequate in and of ourselves. Our 'misdeeds' have both penalties and punishments 'chalked up' as 'demerits' on our chalkboard of score-keeping throughout our lives. We only see the chalk marks - God only sees the blood of Christ that permanently erased the marks. We believe the lie we are not valuable - because we have sin in our lives. We live within the lie - outwardly we live as free, but inwardly we are enslaved to our sense of shame - disgusted by our sinful deeds. To move beyond shame, we need to stop looking ourselves and start looking squarely at Jesus. When we change that focus, we stop seeing our misdeeds as 'demerits' on the board and we see the blood of Jesus that erased them all.

He thought of everything - provided for everything we could possibly need - including our release from the shame we have embraced because of our misdeeds. Shame is part of our identity - we take on the misdeed as something that defines us. Guilt tells us to go to Christ and confess the misdeed, but shame holds onto the misdeed as part of who we are at the core of our being. The truth is quite the opposite - for our identity is defined by whose we are - Christ's first love. Our identity is based in another, not in our actions. Christ reminds us we will never fix the problems of our lives - they were already fixed to the cross by the nails that bound him there on our behalf.

We don't live 'barely free' - we live 'abundantly free'. How? In Christ we are new creations - our identity is changed at the very core. The misdeed's guilt is taken away - the identity we now associate with is HIS identity within us. Stop focusing on the old identity of the sinful man or woman we have been and begin to see the new identity we live within because we have given ourselves to Christ Jesus as his first love. Healing from our shame is only possible as we move from focusing on who we are and what we did; focusing on who he is and what he did. His 'doing' sets us 'abundantly free' - his 'being' sets us 'abundantly free' from our past identity. Just sayin!

A little 'history' lesson

When I was much younger I first heard the saying, "Mountains out of Molehills". Have you ever heard that one? It is that kind of behavior that some would refer to as 'histrionic' - kind of always recalling the past and making WAY more out of it than we should. There have been times I have latched onto a memory of something I have done or said and done just that - made WAY more out of it than I should have. It was a 'slip' of the tongue, an action not becoming a child of the King, or a moment when all sensibilities just melted away and I indulged way too much. In an of themselves, those things mattered, but they didn't deserve the continued attention I paid to them by looking back all the time and recounting the 'depth of my sin'. We make mountains out of what really was just a little puff of dust in the scheme of things! A "mountain-maker" is kind of 'over-reactive' - there just isn't the 'substance' to make a mountain, but we keep looking until we can find something to add to the heap until it resembles a 'mountain'!

When wickedness arrives, shame's not far behind; contempt for life is contemptible. (Proverbs 18:3 MSG)

In the purest sense, this tendency or attitude describes our response to life that is disproportionate to whatever it was that really occurred. We all have a tendency to exaggerate a situation once in a while. Yet, as it comes to the shame we experience and often express over our misdeeds, I think we start out standing on a molehill, or a mere puff of dust, and before long it becomes a mountain in our minds. We don't have moles in my neck of the woods, but we do have prairie dogs or gophers. Those tiny mounds of dirt they push up as they burrow into the ground are certainly not very "ominous" in appearance at first glance. Yet, if you are the ground hog, those very small mounds of dirt serve some very significant purpose. They provide a barrier against the forces that would seek to invade their burrows, such as rain water. They act as tiny "walls or dams" to keep out the waters. They provide a vantage point for them to spy out their territory. As they perch on the top of one of those mounds, they can look all around. Only problem - their view is limited to this very "low" perspective. There are all kinds of "overhead" viewpoints which clearly expose those little critters scurrying about on their mounds. They also provide something to hide behind. They can barely peak over the top and begin to "sense" if there is safety in the immediate area. They can quickly retreat back into their hole if a threat is sensed. I wonder if that is what we do with out 'molehills' - use them as a place of retreat when life gets a little too harried for us.

Do prairie dog holes act as a good example of shame in our lives? Rain comes into our lives in either the form of "healing" or "cleansing" rain - direct from the throne of God. If we build dams against the "rain" of God's grace in our lives, we never really expose ourselves to the very thing which will totally cleanse and free us! The barriers we place between us and God in the form of our walls of shame actually serve to keep us from receiving the very thing that he lovingly provides for our healing. We also think we have a good view of our own sinfulness and misguided steps - seeing our shame in these steps as this huge mound of guilt we stand upon. Problem is we don't have as good of a vantage point as we think we do! God sees our shame as molehills or puffs of dust, while we see it as mountains! Our shame looks like an impossibility we have to overcome. If we were truthful here, we sometimes don't want to remove those walls because we have worked so hard to get those walls built! We hide so cleverly behind those mounds! We think they cover us from view, but guess what - - it is hard to hide from God behind a molehill or puff of dirt! Try it and you will find you have very little "cover" in the scheme of the Almighty's vantage point. There is nothing that covers sin like the blood of Jesus. Whatever "cover" we try on our own will only be futile.

I guess we focus on the molehills way too much. God focuses on the mountains - the places he desires for us to truly dwell. We find shelter in our molehills of shame and misery, all the while hearing God clearly call us up to higher places in his presence. Peace is ours in the mountains. High atop the mountains of his grace, we have the vantage point to see our sin for what it truly is - misguided steps that God will help us to not walk again if we give them to him and allow him to free us from the 'dusty places' of our past lives. We get all 'histrionic' - but the only 'history' that matters to God the Father is the history of the cross! Just sayin!

Some nasty stains here

We ALL make wrong choices. We ALL handle them in one way or another. Some of us have figured out we cannot 'handle' them all by ourselves. Do you ever feel like your "wrong choices" are just staring you in the face all the time? You try to move on, but they just keep "getting in your grill". No amount of "soaking" in our pity seems to take the stain of those choices away, does it? There seems to be no escape, no matter how much we think we are 'dealing with' them. We need God's help if we are to ever be really free of our wrong choices - we will just keep repeating the pattern we have established until we get his help!

Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record. Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry. I know how bad I've been; my sins are staring me down. (Psalm 51:1-3)

We need God to "wipe out" our bad record, don't we? When we think of the term "wipe out", we are drawn to the idea of getting a clear and decisive victory over something - so utterly destroying its effect that we no longer are pestered by the silly thing. On another hand, when we think of a "wipe out" in terms of our own actions, we are saying to God, "I have pretty much made a failure of things here." Does it surprise you to see our psalmist asking God to "wipe out" his "wipe out"? He wants all the hurt and mess he is in to be finally and totally gone! Annihilated - done in - no longer staring him down! Try as we might, we have the worst time trying to cover up our sin! It seems to stare us down at every turn.

Our psalmist presents a couple of great "word picture" when he asks God to "scrub away his guilt" and to "soak out his sins in the laundry". We have lost the concept of "scrubbing" our laundry because we don't do our laundry by hand anymore with the introduction of washing machines. In the times the psalmist penned these words, the "stains" did not come out because of some "magic" spray treatment and high efficiency washer. The cloth had to be rubbed back and forth on a rough surface (like a wash board or stone), sometimes long and hard, until the stain was gone. The process involved not only the rough surface, but a whole lot of "dunking" into the rinse water until the stain was no longer visible.
Take this idea into consideration as it applies to the guilt or shame of our actions. God may have to allow us to pass a couple of times over some "rough surfaces" in order to begin the process of removing the stain of our sin. Until the memory associated with our sin is "undone", it will always be a "stain". In our passing through some "rough patches" in life, we often find the stain becoming more evident - not less! Yet, the bringing of the stain to the surface through the rough spots is actually allowing him to wash it free by the rinsing of his Word and his grace. The Word acts as the "soaking" which begins to "lift away" the stain. The passage of his hands over and over again of our lives may seem a little like we are being passed over some rough spots again and again, but it is always done with the end in mind - the stain being finally and completely removed!

The rinse process never removes the soiling. It takes the combined action of the passage over the rough surface (a little elbow-grease, if you will), and the rinsing which accomplishes the "cleansing" of the stain. The deeper the stain, the longer it may need to be passed over the rough surface and dunked in the cleansing rinse water! God could apply some "miracle stain remover" in our lives, instantly taking away the stains of our sin, but I wonder if we'd really learn anything in the process? It is often in the "process" of experiencing the stain removal that we "connect" the action of the stain with the action of grace. I often have to take extra time to remove a little spilled food or ground in dirt from our clothing. If I relied on the laundry detergent alone to remove them, I'd have only half-gone stains! It is like relying on my own efforts to remove the guilt and shame of my sin. I cannot put in some "detergent" and walk away. To expect the stain to be removed would be silly. So, why do we bring our "stains" to God and not expect there might be some "rough spots" in the stain removal?  Yep, God is all about grace - instant and extended. He is all about love - new today and ongoing tomorrow. He forgives instantly. He has the power to remove our "stains" with one quick and decisive action of his hand. But...I wonder if we'd be more inclined to get "stained" again by the same stuff if the stain removal process was always easy? Sometimes, I think we appreciate grace the most when we come to a comprehension of how "ingrained" our sin actually was!

So, if you are feeling like you are being "rubbed over the rocks" of God's grace at this very moment, rinsed in his pools of renewal, then you are exactly where God wants you. His hands are in the process of removing your "ingrained stain" of sin and shame - his eyes are keenly on the stain, seeing it begin to surface through the actions of his repeated passage of grace and renewal. In turn, you will be free, once and for all, from the stain which was "staring you down" at every turn! Just sayin!

Hiding from grace

I was listening to a Christian song the other day that made me ask if we really do make 'mountains' out of molehills in our lives simply because we won't let go of our shame. Dare I admit it, I probably do this more than I actually realize? How about you? Do you have trouble letting go of your missteps and things you've already confessed to God, but somehow just feel like you need to 'keep confessing' them to him? It is likely you and I do this because we don't really trust God's grace to be complete, final, and trustworthy. Somehow we think we have to do more, confess harder, get worked up a little bit, or just beat ourselves up with our sin just a little bit more if we are ever to be free from the load of guilt we carry because of it. The opposite is the truth, but we hold onto our mistaken beliefs because we don't fully understand grace. Grace isn't just an action in our lives - it is a person - Christ. Where Christ dwells, there is no room for our shame!

When wickedness arrives, shame's not far behind; contempt for life is contemptible. (Proverbs 18:3)

Have you ever heard the saying, "You are making mountains out of molehills"? In the purest sense, this describes our tendency to respond quite "disproportionately" to something right there in front of us, or niggling in the recesses of our conscience. We all have a tendency to exaggerate a situation once in a while - no matter how pure our motives are. Yet, as it comes to our shame over misdeeds, I think we start out standing on a molehill and before long it advances to an almost insurmountable mountain. We don't have moles in my neck of the woods, but we do have prairie dogs or gophers. Those tiny mounds of dirt they push up as they burrow into the ground are certainly not very "ominous" or "intimidating" in appearance. Yet, if you are the ground hog, those very small mounds of dirt serve some purpose and give evidence of something going on just beneath the surface.

They provide a barrier against the forces that seek to invade their burrows, such as rain water. They act as small "dams" to keep out the waters. They provide a vantage point for them to spy out their territory. As they perch on the top of one of these mounds, they can scout all around. Only problem with this 'mound viewing' is that their view is limited to this very "low" perspective. There are all kinds of "overhead" viewpoints which clearly expose them even though they feel their are cleverly blended into their environment. Lastly, they provide something to hide behind and to scurry away into if they are 'under attack' or fell 'threatened'. They can just barely peak their wee noses over the top and begin to "sense" if there is safety in the immediate area. They can quickly retreat back into their hole if a threat is sensed. If the mounds are 'fresh' we know there is activity or life beneath the surface. If the mounds haven't been refreshed in a while, we somehow make the assumption there is no life beneath. The burrowed holes remain even when life seems to have ceased - making it easy for the littlest thing to find 'shelter' inside their tunnels if the need arises. The only way to be free of what no longer exists is to get rid of the places of hiding totally - destroy the burrows!

How could prairie dog holes actually refer to shame in our lives? Rain comes in our lives in the form of "healing" and "cleansing" rain - direct from the throne of God. We will call this "grace rain". If we build dams against the "grace rain" we never really expose ourselves to the very thing which will cleanse us! The barriers we place between us and God in the form of our walls of shame actually serve to keep us from receiving the very thing that he provides for our much needed healing. We also think we have a good view of our sinfulness - seeing our shame as this huge mound of guilt we stand upon. Problem is we don't have as good of a vantage point as we think we do! God sees our shame as molehills - we see it as mountains! Silly us! Our shame looks like an impossibility to overcome - we have worked so hard to get those walls built, after all! We hide so cleverly behind those mounds! We think they cover us and our guilt from everyone's view, but guess what - - it is hard to hide behind a molehill! Try it - you will find you have very little "cover" in the scheme of the Almighty's vantage point. There is nothing that covers sin and the load of guilt it produces like the blood of Jesus. Whatever "cover" we try on our own will be futile.What you do with the molehill determines if you will stand upon true mountains! Just sayin!

But...it is shameful

A great many of us would admit that there are "chapters" or "portions" of our lives that we'd like no one to actually remember or know about at all. We have some failures we'd rather no one really knew about, dreams that seem kind of silly when pondered by anyone other than us, and problems with memories that we just cannot seem to let loose of no matter how hard we try. These "pages" or "portions" of our lives are worked into our lives as 'indelible ink' is worked into paper. It is through the passage of time and the events of the days gone by that they form into 'permanent' parts of our lives. Most people don't have the guts to invite God to investigate their life - to read those "hidden chapters" like they were an open book. Most don't want God to get second-hand knowledge of their actions, attitudes, or attributes - we'd rather rest in the assurance that he gets this information about us 'first-hand', because we know he can be trusted to 'know' this stuff about us and still love us!

God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand. I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight. You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too—your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful—I can't take it all in! (Psalm 139:1-6)

Learning to live life as an open book is pretty scary - especially when we are living this way before others, not just God. As long as the less desirable "chapters" of our lives can be "edited out", we are okay with letting others "read us" - to know the 'details' of our lives that seem to us to be kind of shameful or distasteful. We'd like the "editing" rights to our lives - but that is not our job - we don't get to control what others observe about us. At best, we are second-rate writers - so how do we expect to be first-rate editors? There is only one editor that will do the job right the first time - that is Jesus Christ. He knows exactly what needs to be seen in our lives and what others need not ever know about us, but to live life as an open book before him means we are willing to allow him to open up those chapters for others to learn from, as well.

Why is it that we resist the "editing" work of Christ in our lives? It could be we have some element of shame attached to those hidden things - having done things we are not at all proud of now. It could be that we have secret aspirations that we have held for years, all the while too fearful to share them because we have listened to the lies of others telling us that we will never amount to much and could never see them fulfilled, no matter how hard we try. Or still, it could be that we just don't think we've done well in the "writing" of our lives and we don't believe there is much contained in the "chapters" that anyone would benefit from "reading". Here's the honest truth - your life is filled with things that bring you shame, but Christ has the ability and desire to edit those shameful events and memories so the shame is no longer there. Your life's dreams matter and Christ desires to make dreams a reality. Your life may not be monumental in the eyes of others, but in his sight, it is magnificent. Learning to live life as an open book is indeed difficult, but it is equally as rewarding. Isn't it time to allow the "editing" work of the hand of Christ in your life so that what has been 'worked in' and 'worked out' in your life can be of benefit to others, as well? Just askin!

Fill that pit in for good

There are times when we reduce God to our perception of the circumstances rather than the bigness of his power and grace! We bring him to our level rather than coming up to his. "God wants us to believe Him to be huge, even if we don't know what to believe Him for in a particular situation and circumstance. I can believe God to be God, to come and show Himself mighty and merciful in that situation, even if I don't really know biblically what I'm to ask Him for." (Beth Moore) The more we reduce God to our level, the less likely we are to ever believe he is "big enough" or "bigger than" our circumstances.

Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence.  And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him. (I John 4:20-22 NLT)

Guilt is probably the number one thing that gets us bogged down in life. It is also the number one thing that can lift us up to a place above our sin, out of that pit full of muddy water, and right into the place we can be free of it. We can bemoan the pit, constantly trying to bail water from around our ankles using a bucket with a hole in it, or we can turn the bucket over, stand upon it and peer up into the expanse of his grace. God expects us to do more than bail water, to just remain afloat - he expects us to position ourselves for complete and total rescue!

Shame is part of guilt - the emotional response to having done something which brought feelings of regret, diminished self-worth, etc. Shame is kind of like that bucket with the hole in it - worthless to actually free us from our despair over our sin as long as it is in our hands. The emotions just keep coming over and over, like the ever-rising muddy waters in the pit. The bucket might help us deal with some of them, but in time, we won't be able to keep up! 

To be free, we turn the bucket over, break free of the muck and mire holding us down, and rise above the muddy water of guilt. Then we let Jesus use that momentary change in our position to begin to lift us out of the pit. Stop for just a moment to think about what we do when we turn the bucket over and stand upon it. We aren't saying we are capable of getting ourselves out of the messy place alone, we are simply saying we aren't going to try to do it ourselves, with "faulty" efforts any longer. 

The pit of shame will hold us captive until we surrender the bucket. We can attempt to bail all we want, but eventually the effort of freeing ourselves from the muck will do us in - the faulty pail will do us little good. Most of us attempt to deal with our guilt and shame with things, but all these "things" are just faulty pails. The shame still holds on long after the things have outlived their usefulness! Sin and shame is best dealt with by God filling in the pit that we sunk into in the first place, not by bailing!  Just sayin!

Psychological Reversal

Izaak Walton was an English writer who often spoke in terms of loss - not in a negative way, but in a very thought provoking manner. For example, he once said, "The person who loses his conscience has nothing left worth keeping." He also reminds us that "no man can ever lose what he never had". Probably one my favorite quotes from Mr. Walton is: "God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart."  He certainly hit that one on the head! I am certain God dwells in the heart of meek - for no other pursuit, self-help process, or therapy session can truly produce meekness in a man's heart. True thankfulness also springs forth from a heart that has become intimately acquainted with grace. Yes, we can be thankful without grace, but it is fleeting. Deep, lasting gratitude is only possible where grace has had an affect.

When the law came into the picture, sin grew and grew; but wherever sin grew and spread, God’s grace was there in fuller, greater measure. No matter how much sin crept in, there was always more grace. (Romans 5:20 VOICE)

Apart from grace's action, there can be no real change of heart - without a true change of heart, man will continue to choose things which end in loss for him - whether he likes it or not. Man cannot truthfully comprehend the depth of his need until he is faced with the beauty of grace. There is just something about grace that reveals the true self - the deepest longings of one's heart and the lame attempts we make to meet those needs in our own power or effort. Man might argue they don't like this idea of grace because it carries with it the idea of conviction, but I'd have to say that apart from conviction we don't appreciate the value of grace.

Why does sin grow in the presence of the law? Shouldn't it be just the opposite? Shouldn't the law produce something quite the opposite of "law-breaking"? You'd think that'd be the case, but in reality we have a way of seeing how close we can get to the line and even kind of "straddle" it on occasion without being "caught" by the law. Many of us have heard the term "reverse psychology" in which we say one thing while trying to get the person to do another, such as "kids stay in the house" when we actually are hoping they will go out and enjoy a little sunshine. 

Most of us have not heard the term "psychological reversal", though. This refers to the tendency one might exhibit to actually "sabotage" oneself through actions that seem contrary to what one would expect. For example, when someone can easily make friends because they are outgoing and engage in things that interest those who they are friends with, they may experience some "good feelings" from those friendships, but the psychologically reversed individual actually feels bad about feeling good! So, they do everything they can to create chaos in the relationship because they don't believe they are meant to feel good!

Some of us go through life thinking we should not feel good about grace. We are psychologically reversed in our thinking about grace! We think we are meant to experience "bad stuff" like conviction and shame, but we don't think we are "deserving" of the good feelings grace produces. Grace produces such feelings because we finally have an answer for our conviction and we come out from under that weight of shame! Like it or not, this is how God works - he wants us to feel good! He wants us to appreciate sin's weight and understand that there is a way "out from under" that weight - grace! 

A truly grateful heart springs from a heart willing to be embraced by grace - then holds on for dear life to the affects of grace to deal with the sense of conviction and the weight of shame that sin has produced in our lives. We can resist the "goodness" of grace all we want, thinking our sin should make us feel shame, but in God's economy there is no room for shame. Shame is not something we should live with - it is something "shed" at the moment we reach out to embrace grace! Just sayin!

Heart attraction

We might call a person who really doesn't like to be around other people a recluse.  We might think of this person as living in a secluded area, or in a house with tall shrubs all around so as to keep people out and their "secret lives" secret.  In reality, anyone who lives "shut off" from the world is living a life of a recluse.  I am not much into quantum theory, although I have had the privilege of speaking with some amazingly intelligent men and women who do very well in this field.  I do appreciate some of the principles they teach, one of which is best stated by Erwin Schrodinger, an Austrian Physicist who studied in this field.  He said, "For a solitary animal, egoism is a virtue that tends to preserve and improve the species; in any kind of community it becomes a destructive vice."  Well said, Mr. Schrodinger!  As long as we live with ourselves and engage with no others throughout this lifetime, we might just find our egocentric lifestyle exactly what we need to survive.  If we venture at all into society at large, this egocentricity will be what gives us the greatest conflict!

People who do not get along with others are interested only in themselves; they will disagree with what everyone else knows is right.  A fool does not care whether he understands a thing or not; all he wants to do is show how smart he is.  Sin and shame go together. Lose your honor, and you will get scorn in its place.  A person's words can be a source of wisdom, deep as the ocean, fresh as a flowing stream.  It is not right to favor the guilty and keep the innocent from receiving justice.  When some fool starts an argument, he is asking for a beating.  When a fool speaks, he is ruining himself; he gets caught in the trap of his own words.  Gossip is so tasty—how we love to swallow it!  A lazy person is as bad as someone who is destructive. The Lord is like a strong tower, where the righteous can go and be safe.  (Proverbs 18:1-10 GNT)

The most profound quote about this tendency we have to "isolate" ourselves from others is really from an American preacher.  Henry Ward Beecher once said, "Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right use of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory.  He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own."  Chew on that one a while and you will see how Mr. Beecher really nailed this one on the head.  Nothing attracts others more than the heart of a man or woman.  Conversely, nothing maintains or damages relationships quicker than the heart of a man or woman.  The heart is the seat of our emotions, intellect, and connects closely with our spirit.  A recluse is self-indulgent, snarling at life, and those who fill the spaces around them.  

As long as we live a solitary existence, we are free to be self-indulgent, excessive or unrestrained in the pursuit of what we believe will satisfy our own appetites, desires, and whims.  To withdraw from relationship is to become "inward focused".  If you know anyone who might just be "me-centered", you will note how quickly the "rules" of conduct they adhere to are really those which they have made for themselves.  The rules of conduct which others live by really don't make sense to them, so they create their own.  If you haven't guessed it by now, this is quite a dangerous spot to find oneself in.  We are not very good at living by the rules - what ever would make us think we could be any better at writing the rules?

We have concluded in our study of the Proverbs that a fool has no interest in understanding - they just want to air their own opinion, follow their own rules, live their own lives.  The problem comes when the fool enters into society trying to air that opinion, live outside the rules of society, or seclude themselves.  A fool lacks judgement and prudence - often expressing what should be left unsaid or speaking before they hear all the facts.  In community, this causes issues.  Maybe this is why the fool gravitates to a life of solitary existence, or at least lives communally with those of like foolish behavior.  

When the foolishness is allowed to prevail, three things are certain to happen:

- There will be a lack of respect for others.  We have a fancy word for this - contempt.  Where there is a lack of respect for others, there is also this willful disregard for the rules - disobedience is the norm, not the exception. Authority is really defined by who makes the rules - the fool follows their own set of rules, so they are their own authority.

- You cannot live long around a fool without seeing some hint of shame. While the fool might think it is fine to follow their rules, their willful disobedience to any authority besides their own will result in some expression of impropriety. Fools engage others in their folly, because they really don't know how to keep what they feel or are doing to themselves.  In the end, they rope others into shameful behavior which will bring much shame or guilt to those who get roped in.

- In the end, disgrace will enter in because you cannot pursue this lifestyle for long without losing favor with others, or diminishing your standing in the community in which you congregate.  Fools will eventually gather a poor reputation and this impacts their feelings of self-worth or self-esteem.  Some will take this to heart and will turn to some authority outside of themselves seeking to be restored.  Others will just wander aimlessly down this path, living as though the "bad rap" they bear matters little to them.  

Fools actually don't know value of community.  Community brings us into a place of accountability - as long as those within our "community" have values which point toward submission to authority, a heartfelt commitment of not allowing shame or guilt to define a person, and there is an overriding drive to maintain the reputation which reflects a heart centered on Christ.  Only then can we truly say our "strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of our own".  Just sayin! 

Say What?

Have you ever given anyone an "opening" to just all out tell you anything they wanted?  I have - a word of warning here - it is not always what you might want to hear!!!  Sometimes you learn things about yourself - other times you learn things about the other person - and sometimes you learn things about other people not even involved in the conversation!  Imagine being in the most "open" and "sharing" of relationships with someone.  I like to call this a relationship with transparency and intimacy - the freedom to share your heart.  You want to share things which you might not want to share with other people, right?  I think God gives an open door to each of us to enter into this type of relationship with him.  We can come boldly into his presence, sit right down and "unload" even the deepest and darkest of secrets - all with the confidence of knowing he will take what we say only as far as OUR relationship!  It stays there because he knows the value of this type of sharing - it is the closest of sharing and means there is "strength" and "stability" in the relationship.  So, now I want you to imagine God speaking to the hungering heart - one just looking for someone with whom they may have this type of close and stable relationship - the place of sharing just between two.  Here is where we start our study today.

So tell me what you think. Look at the evidence.  Put your heads together. Make your case.  Who told you, and a long time ago, what’s going on here?  Who made sense of things for you?  Wasn’t I the one? God?  It had to be me. I’m the only God there is—The only God who does things right and knows how to help.  So turn to me and be helped—saved!—everyone, whoever and wherever you are.  I am God, the only God there is, the one and only.  I promise in my own name: Every word out of my mouth does what it says.  I never take back what I say.  Everyone is going to end up kneeling before me. Everyone is going to end up saying of me, ‘Yes! Salvation and strength are in God!’”  (Isaiah 45:32-23 MSG)

God opens the door for conversation.  This is important for us to realize - for sometimes we believe WE have to be the ones to open the door!  The truth is God has already done the deed of opening up to us, just so we can enjoy the privilege of opening up to him!  He then asks us to tell him what we think.  Remember, I already told you this may not be the thing you WANT to hear, but it is the thing which may actually NEED to be said!  God knows what we will say before we say it - he is all-knowing (omniscient).  Yet, there is something about being open in our communication which he encourages - and even allows!  Even when it is complaint, frustration, anger, fear, or even regret.  Then he asks us to examine the evidence.  What I think God does in our times of open communication with him is to actually help us "examine the evidence" which is revealed in our words.  He loves hearing our voice - even the "voices in our heads".  Yet, in the speaking of the words, WE are actually the ones who begin to see a revelation of truth we might not have seen before.

For example, have you ever began to complain about something, then without really realizing it, you begin to see the selfishness in your complaint, or maybe the emotional response you had which was actually an "over-reaction" to the moment?  I have!  The more I speak, the clearer it becomes that the words I am speaking kind of get "sorted out" in the process of speaking them.  In other words - the evidence becomes a little clearer.  If you have ever watched one of those crime scene shows, what do the detectives always do?  They talk things out together!  Why?  In the "talking it out" the evidence becomes a little clearer and truthfully, two heads are ALWAYS better than one.

When we go back to our passage, God asks the next challenging question.  He wants us to know we don't "figure things out" on own - he is the one who makes sense of the matter!  We might begin to see the evidence, putting piece one together with piece two, but it he that makes all the pieces come together in perfect order.  God is the only one who knows how the fit - so why is it we avoid bringing the pieces to him?  We often struggle with being open with him because of our shame over what the "pieces" represent.  The truth is, the shame is really "self-imposed" - God is not associating our broken pieces with shame, but with grace.  Shame is OUR feeling - nothing we "feel" about our brokenness causes God to feel "shame" - the feeling produced by guilt.  

God asks us to plainly allow him to assist us to see the evidence - not to bring us shame, but to set us free from guilt and, in turn, to set us free from the "feelings" associated with our guilt.  When we begin to examine the evidence of our actions - communicating openly and honestly about them, we often find the greatest challenge comes in letting go of the "emotion" associated with the past actions.  Truth be told - we all struggle with this!  Truth be told - God is the one to hear our conversation, turn to us in grace, and help us be freed of the associated shame.  God's encouraging words - turn to me and be helped!  Don't gloss that one over, friends.  God's words to you and I are to turn to him - to come face-to-face with him - opening the way for the embrace.  It is WHERE we position ourselves which makes it possible for him to help.  Open arms don't do us any good if we remain shut off to their embrace - shame has no way of being removed until grace embraces the "evidence" of wrongdoing in our lives!

Guess what else our passage tells us?  God actually listens - then he talks to us!  It is two-way communication, friends.  At first, God has to listen a lot, because it takes us time to realize our "talking" is kind of like a cathartic action.  When we finally get it all out - he is there to pick up the pieces, sorting them out carefully, and then revealing what it is he hopes we will get out of the time we have spent together.  He may speak back just a simple, "Thank you!"  Why?  Simply because he has waited for us to be THAT honest with him for a long time.  He may speak back a word of encouragement, "I understand".  Why?  Truthfully it is because his Son walked this earth and DOES understand the pain we experience.  He may speak back some "action words", telling us clearly what steps we take next.  Why?  Honestly, this is the hardest part of the conversation!  Here, he asks for us to take what we have learned and put it into action in our lives.  It is not because he judges us, but because he knows just how much those actions will bring us closer to the evidence of Christ within us! 

Next time you need to get it off your chest, you might just want to start with the one who will help you sort out the evidence, come to the realization of truth, and then actually assist you put the truth into action!  Just sayin!

Is your "feed" working?

Pursue:  to follow in order to overtake, capture; to proceed in accordance with the plan or purpose.   The most important part of this definition is the word "follow".  Did you ever stop to consider all the things in life you "follow".  In Facebook "speak", we "follow" our friends - keeping up with their lives through the social networking feed we obtain from their posts.  In terms of a military command, when we "follow" an order, we are doing exactly as we have been instructed - not veering from the original intent of the order.  We "follow" certain news events because they catch our eye and stimulate some form of curiosity within.  In all these examples, we "follow" or "pursue" because there is something we count on as a "benefit" to us.  If we "follow", maybe we will learn something, be kept safe, or have the inside info on what is going on.  

Whoever pursues righteousness and unfailing love will find life, righteousness, and honor.  (Proverbs 21:21 NLT)

I daresay the "following" God honors is the type encompassed in this verse.  In the Message Bible, the passage reads similarly, but has a little bit of a different twist:  Whoever goes hunting for what is right and kind finds life itself—glorious life!  The idea of "pursuing" is presented as "hunting" - carrying the idea of chasing after, or searching for something we wish to obtain.  Whether we use the word "pursue" or "hunt", the idea is one of searching thoroughly, seeking intently.  

If you and I were to refine our "following" or "pursuing" a little, I wonder just how much that change the pursuit?  In Facebook land, we have an opportunity to scroll over a person's name, then choose how much of the individual's posts we want to be seeing in our news feed.  In other words, we get to determine how much we want to "follow" of their life story!  Have you ever excluded some part of a friend's feed only to be asked by them if you saw their post?  When you proclaim you did not, the "hiding" of them from your feed is very apparent!  

I wonder if we have done the same with God's "feed" in our lives?  Perhaps we have been "selective" about how much of God's feed we want.  We exclude certain books of the Bible because we have labeled them too hard to understand, not pertinent to our present day experiences, or the like.  We dismiss certain commands because they seem archaic and out of touch with what life is like today.  We even deny hearing his promptings in our lives, choosing instead to follow our own.  If God were to ask us if we got his latest "update", I wonder how we'd all answer this question?

Our writer reminds us of pursuing righteousness and unfailing love.  Pursuing so as to overtake it - making it our way of life rather than a thing we view as pie in the sky.  Isn't this what the hunter does?  He tracks the object of his hunt and then he takes it as his own - allowing it to become whatever it is he needs.  If he takes in the meat from it, he finds nourishment for his body.  If he uses the hide to make clothing, he finds covering for his nakedness.  If he puts the remainder in the ground, he allows the remainder to feed the earth from which he will bring forth crops in season.

Pursuing righteousness and unfailing love is a lot like hunting for game.  We find nourishment for our spirit, covering for our shame, and the hope for a harvest to come.  God assures us of three things as a result of us pursuing righteousness and unfailing love - the two things we can find in the person of Christ.  First, we find life.  Isn't this what the game gives the hunter when he takes the meat into his body?  In the shedding of blood, he obtains that which gives him life.  In the shedding of Christ's blood, we obtained life.  In taking in his life, we obtain eternal life! 

Second, we find righteousness.  Nothing covers over our shame - the influence of things we have done and/or have had done to us in our past - like the righteousness of God.  It "covers" us.  When we feel "shame" isn't it because we somehow equate the thing we have done or which has been done to us as something as significant as parading around naked?  In obtaining God's righteousness, we are "dressed" with the very thing which removes the shame.

Last, but definitely not least, we find honor.  There is an old Chinese proverb: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day - teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.  I'd like us to consider why the hunter "turns" the remains he cannot use into the soil.  Isn't it to nourish the soil so it will be readied to bring forth a crop later?  In fact, he uses it to change the consistency of the soil - making it full of nutrients which will "feed" the growth to come later on. God's righteousness and unfailing love does just this in us - it prepares us for the harvest to come.  Satisfying the hunger of today is one thing, preparing for the needs of our future is quite another.  As we look at our Chinese proverb, I think what is being said is that when we teach a man to plant a seed, we bring honor to his life.  God is all about planting seeds - prepared soil does much more to bring forth a good harvest - honoring the one who gives the seed and the one who will benefit from its growth.

Just as we "follow" some things with definite passion and purpose, it would be good for us to determine if we have the "feed" of God's righteousness and unfailing love "wide open" in our lives.  Just sayin!

Mountains out of molehills

I was listening to a song on the way to work yesterday.  In the verse, a thought crossed my mind which I took as a seed thought for our study today.  The basics of the song inferred we stand on mountains of shame.  Dare I say we do this more than we may actually realize?  


When wickedness arrives, shame's not far behind; contempt for life is contemptible.  (Proverbs 18:3 The Message)


Have you ever heard the saying, "You are making mountains out of molehills"?  In the purest sense, this describes our tendency to respond "disproportionately" to something.  We all have a tendency to exaggerate a situation once in a while.  Yet, as it comes to our shame over misdeeds, I think we start out standing on a molehill and before long it advances to a mountain.


We don't have moles in my neck of the woods, but we do have prairie dogs.  Those tiny mounds of dirt they push up as they burrow into the ground are certainly not very "ominous" in appearance.  Yet, if you are the ground hog, those very small mounds of dirt serve some purpose.


First, they provide a barrier against the forces which would seek to invade their burrows, such as rain water.  They act as small "dams" to keep out the waters.  Second, they provide a vantage point for them to spy out their territory.  As they perch on the top of one of these mounds, they can scout all around.  Only problem - their view is limited to this very "low" perspective.  There are all kinds of "overhead" viewpoints which clearly expose us.  Lastly, they provide something to hide behind.  They can barely peak over the top and begin to "sense" if there is safety in the immediate area.  They can quickly retreat back into their hole if a threat is sensed.


Now, how do prairie dog holes refer to shame in our lives?  Well, rain comes in our lives in the form of "healing" and "cleansing" rain - direct from the throne of God.  We will call this "grace rain".  If we build dams against the "grace rain" we never really expose ourselves to the very thing which will cleanse us!  The barriers we place between us and God in the form of our walls of shame actually serve to keep us from receiving the very thing which he provides for our healing.


We also think we have a good view of our sinfulness - seeing our shame as this huge mound of guilt we stand upon.  Problem is, we don't have as good of a vantage point as we think we do!  God sees our shame as molehills - we see it as mountains!  Silly us!  Our shame looks like an impossibility to overcome - we have worked so hard to get those walls built, after all!


Last, but not least, we hide so cleverly behind those mounds!  We think they cover us from view, but guess what - - it is hard to hide behind a molehill!  Try it - - you will find you have very little "cover" in the scheme of the Almighty's vantage point.  There is nothing which covers sin like the blood of Jesus.  Whatever "cover" we try on our own will be futile.


Just thoughts about molehills and mountains today.  What you do with the molehill determines if you will stand upon true mountains!

Not just a life preserver!

Affirm your promises to me—promises made to all who fear you. Deflect the harsh words of my critics—but what you say is always so good.  See how hungry I am for your counsel;preserve my life through your righteous ways!

(Psalm 119:38-40 The Message)

 Reassure me of your promise, made to those who fear you.
 Help me abandon my shameful ways; for your regulations are good.
 I long to obey your commandments!  Renew my life with your goodness.

(Psalm 119:38-40 The New Living Translation)

Sometimes we need to see things written a little differently to help us understand the purpose of what is being written.  From our passage today, let's look at a few similar words that have some very unique meaning:

Affirm and Reassure - Affirm carries the meaning of remaining true to that which has been promised.  It is the idea of confirming or ratifying an agreement.  David is asking God to give him confirmation that his promises will remain true for all time.  Reassure carries the idea of being encouraged again by those promises.  When one is reassured, there is a confidence that what has been promised will indeed come to pass.  Our psalmist is pointing us to the promises God makes - not the ones we make to God.  At best, our own promises are marginal - we seem to vary our commitment to them with the changing of circumstances in our lives.  The tougher things are, the more we draw into God.  The converse is true - the better things seem to be going, the less intent we may be at honoring those promises we made in the tougher times.  Isn't it reassuring that we don't have a God that is "situational" in his promise keeping.  He makes them to all who fear him - he fulfills them to all who fear him!

Deflect and Abandon - Deflect has the meaning of turning aside from something that seems to be coming straight at you so that it misses you totally.  It seems that the psalmist is asking God to "turn aside" those attacks that come his way because of his commitment to stand for God's truth.  Abandon carries the idea of giving up completely so as not to take it up again.  With this word, David appears to be asking God to ensure that his attackers abandon (give up) their course of attack against him.  We will always have critics in life - it is human nature to criticize what we don't understand!  We have a unique opportunity to allow God to act as our shield against those attacks of doubt, criticisms of faith, and accusations of guilt.  In so doing, we allow God to protect us from the things that could easily get us off course with him.  Look again at that word "abandon" - David is asking God to HELP him to abandon his shameful ways.  He doesn't want to keep doing the same shameful things - these only serve to weigh him down with guilt.  I think we'd do well to follow David's example - asking God for his HELP in abandoning (laying down so as not to pick it up again) those things that we struggle with.

Hungry and Long - Hungry carries the idea of a compelling need.  There is something David is trying to describe here as a compelling need to no longer rely upon his own wisdom, but to lean into God so he receives only God's counsel.  In so doing, he is counting on God's assistance to help him walk in obedience to that revealed counsel.  Long carries the meaning of a persistent desire - it is not easily satisfied.  When we have that kind of persistent desire, we usually do everything we can to see it is fulfilled!  There are all kinds of hunger, but David counts on God to help him sort out the good hunger from the hunger that just isn't going to result in good things for our lives.  He yearns to be obedient and he lays that yearning at God's feet.  In so doing, he is asking God to help him with that compelling need - a need he is incapable of meeting in his natural man.

Preserve and Renew - If an object is preserved, some would say that it is kept alive.  In the case of brain death, the brain can no longer sustain the life of the body without the assistance of machines.  In these cases, the patient may be an organ donor.  If that is the case, every attempt is made to "keep alive" the organs of the donor via the machines until they can be harvested and given to the intended recipient.  Preserve means to "keep up" - not allowing something to fall into disrepair.  David knows that his life is bound to fall apart if God is not actively engaged in preserving him from his own "hell-bent" course.  Renew has a totally different meaning, but adds significance to what David is conveying.  It means to "begin again" - as in taking up something again that might have been laid down for a while.  It is the idea of resuming something.  It has the additional meaning of being replenished.  The psalmist is asking God to replenish his commitments to walk in is ways and his ways alone.  

David was assured of one thing:  God listens when we lay our needs out before him.  If we are struggling, he stands ready to step in.  If we are shamed by our missteps, he comes along to set us on course again.  If there is pressure to conform to standards not always the best for us, he outlines the best again so we are clear on what they are.  If we just need to begin again, he is the God of new beginnings (no matter how many times we have to begin!).  God's commitment to those that fear him is that we will not fall into a state of disrepair!  Thank him for his continued care - even when we aren't crying out for his help, he is still there!