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I can’t tell you how much time I’ve wasted on that website the past two weeks. Watching Charlie Sheen rapidly decompose before my very eyes has been sad but fascinating for whatever reason.
Coupling his story with some recently discovered scripture, I have a new take on sin.
I’ve always thought of sin in terms of darkness, back alleys, deserted corners. Deep down in a hole. Somewhere in the underbelly. Something you wallow in. But then I read a few chapters in Jeremiah, and I came across several references to the phrase “desolate heights.” It made me pause and think about what desolate heights really meant. Our debauchery on display, high upon a hill in plain view? Another way of saying it’s lonely at the top? The juxtaposition of these two seemingly opposite words was painfully poetic.
Sin can look like success. You can be falling fast but look like you’re climbing. Celebrities show us this truth on a daily basis. Famous, rich, accomplished, by all accounts they have reached the top of the mountain. And then you watch Charlie Sheen declare himself a “winner” as he shares what’s left of his scrambled egg brain with a national broadcast audience.
We get lost within idolatry and materialism. Power and Greed. Self-importance. Self-indulgence. Self-righteousness. Self-medication. As the old adage goes, we climb the ladder but don’t realize we have it propped against the wrong wall. We might find “success” along the way, but it can come at a price.
We go the way of a backsliding Israel in Jeremiah 3:6, who went “up on every mountain and under every green tree, and there played the harlot.”
When we reach our desolate heights, we are fully engaged in our sin. We are up to our eyeballs with it. And we are on display, high upon a hill for everyone to see. It’s ironic that in some cases you can reach your lowest low from the highest place around.
It is very easy for us to get caught up in satisfying self, or to be overwhelmed by sin, to climb all the way to the top of the mountain only to arrive at an empty, barren wasteland, miles away from God and what He wants for us. On a desolate height. But when you find yourself high on that hill, on that desolate height, what do you do?
I suggest you jump. Leap and plunge right back into faith, trusting God will catch you. That’s what I try to do. I throw myself toward God and His mercy. I try to get grounded again as quickly as possible. I try to change my attitude by changing my altitude. It is indeed lonely at the top. And I have no desire to “live the sheen dream” at all.
Before there were machines for such things, a threshing floor was used remove harvested grain from its stalk and husk. It was a flattened surface, usually circular and paved. Often it was shared by several families or entire villages, and it was usually placed outside the village where it could be exposed to wind. The farmers would spread the sheaves of grain across the floor and use animals such as donkeys or cattle to thresh the grain by walking around in circles and dragging a heavy board behind them.
This activity would literally tear the ears of grain from the stalks and loosen the grain from the husks. Afterward, all the grain and broken stalks would be tossed into the air with a tool called a “winnowing fan”. The chaff and straw would blow away with the wind, while the heavier grain would fall to the floor, ready to be collected.
I keep bumping into references to “threshing floors” while reading scripture lately. The last time it happened, I was finally curious enough to find out what a threshing floor actually is. In researching threshing floors, I uncovered the information above, and I came across an article by Don Walker who wrote:
“I believe that worship for us is to be a time of “threshing”, when God separates the “wheat’ from the “chaff” in our lives. When we enter into worship, we are stepping on to God’s “threshing floor” where He deals with those things which need to be “winnowed” out of our lives. ” http://www.preteristarchive.com/PartialPreterism/walker-don_pp_04.html
More broadly, I feel like this is a metaphor for our ongoing relationship with God. I’ve written before about circling the drain and consistently encountering and addressing common challenges and issues you have. While we circle, I also believe we undergo this threshing process, where God literally separates us from those things that separate us from Him.
Threshing is such a painful sounding word. The entire process sounds painful. Especially if you are the grain. Think about it. First, you get harvested from your resting place and carted over to this pit in the middle of nowhere with gusting winds. You are thrown on a paved surface where heavy animals trample about while dragging a large, heavy piece of wood over you, with the specific intent of tearing you into pieces. Then, as you lie there in several pieces, you are scooped up, tossed into the air, where the wind blows scatters parts of you across the way and the rest of you lands back in a pile on the floor. Ouch.
A relationship with God is going to include pain. Really choosing to be in a close relationship with Him requires threshing. A lot of threshing. A violent battle with parts of yourself. A tearing, trampling, wind-blown experience. I have been carried to the threshing floor several times this past year. Each time, it is painful, uncomfortable, slightly agonizing. But every time I commit and see it through, I exit in a better form, cleaned of unnecessary parts, more focused and concentrated, closer to the grain He planted in the first place.
File this post under “things we all know and routinely fail to remember.”
I was reading a passage about lepers the other night, about how they were shunned and cut off from society. It got me thinking. If everyone was a leper, where would you send the lepers? That’s not a hypothetical question.
Most everyone knows Romans 3:23 – For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There’s another verse I like a lot that speaks to me in a similar fashion: Hebrews 13:3 – Remember the prisoners as if chained with them, and those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also.
We are all in the body. We’ve all been prisoners. We shouldn’t shun someone when they are struggling, whether because of sin or an unfortunate situation. Quite the opposite. We should empathize. Remember how it felt when we were in those chains. Lift them up, and hope they do the same for us the next time we need it.
It’s easy to throw stones from our glass houses. To rank sins on a high to low scale. To judge. To do nothing because we are uncomfortable and don’t know what to say. Or run in fear. To deny or ignore that we are all plagued with some form of this disease. That we share these chains. And that we can help each other break them.
My wife is a popper.
Of zits, that is.
My zits to be specific.
If I get one on my back or shoulder, she will literally tackle me, try to pin me down and pop it. Just a gross and unexplainable hobby of hers. Obviously the zit needs popping. And it’s not like I can use my go go gadget arms to reach it. But oh the pain! Maybe that’s why she likes to do it.
For those of you who have never struggled with acne, let me provide you with some context before I go further. I’m something of an expert. In junior high, I had a slight pimple problem. After being nuked from the inside with medication that is now banned from stores (thanks mom and dad), I was able to rid myself of most of the unwanted visitors on my face. Years later, I do still have the occasional acne sighting.
When you try to pop a zit, it hurts, and the closer you get to popping it the more it hurts. It’s an intense, searing pain that builds, until suddenly, the pressure is gone. Finally, I’m going to get to the point here. Sin is the same. As you try to address your personal demons, they will get louder and claw and bite and fight. Just before you break through, it will hurt like hell. And then … relief.
The problem is most of us turn around and retreat to numbness and comfort instead of pushing through the pain. We let the sin fester beneath the surface, allowing it to grow bigger and stronger, risking infection and further complications.
When you choose to engage sin, it hurts. We just have to be prepared to push, push, push through it.
I guess when it comes down to it, I’m a popper too!
As my boys and I were huddled over heaping bowls of Cheerios this morning, Disney channel blaring in the background, living room already littered with cars and puzzles and trains and dinosaurs and dragons, I started to feel a little hypocritical.
Our family is between church homes at the moment, and we’ve fallen into a bad pattern the last several weeks, getting out of the church routine altogether. Replacing it with just another day of daily chaos. We’ve been discussing options, but not really acting on them. And it’s feeling like we’re not walking our walk. This is just one of several examples where lately I just am not aligned between words and deeds.
Flipping through some scripture, I landed on Job 27:8-12 where he poses several questions related to hypocrisy:
What is the hope of the hypocrite, though he gain much, if God takes away his life?
Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him?
Will he delight himself in the Almighty?
Will he always call on God?
Great questions to ask in times of insincerity, when I’m wandering from where God would have me be. When I’m not being genuine and authentic and truthful. When talk and walk aren’t aligned.
We all have our moments of hypocrisy. In our professional lives, our personal lives, and in particular, our spiritual lives. I often get caught up in my own pursuits, and forget to delight in God where I’m blessed and to call on Him in times of need. I pronounce myself dependant upon Him, but my actions say I depend on myself. Hypocrisy.
The passage ends with my favorite all time question I’ve stumbled upon in the Bible. He says, “I will teach you about the hand of God; the Almighty I will not conceal.” And then he pops the question:
Surely all of you have seen it; Why then do you behave with complete nonsense?”
I love it. No sugar-coating. A direct call out. Hey dummy!
I don’t really have a good answer. Yes, I’ve seen the hand of God. It hasn’t been concealed. It’s been written across the sky, put up in bright lights, carved on my forehead. And yet, it’s so easy to behave with complete nonsense. To be a hypocrite. To not walk the walk. For me, it starts with getting serious about the church search again. Anyone with recommendations, fire away!
I hate running. Absolutely hate it. Ask me if I want to play six straight hours of pick up basketball? Sure thing. But try convincing me to run to the mailbox and back and see where that gets you. Some people find running therapeutic. Freeing. And yes, it is great exercise. But it just isn’t for me. Unless there’s sin involved.
You see, when we’re talking transgressions, I lace up my Nikes and haul tail with the speed of a world-class sprinter and the endurance of a marathoner. I don’t do all that well with conflict, in the real world or the spiritual world. And so my natural reaction when faced with sin is to retreat. Hide from it. Hope it will just leave me alone and go away. We’re programmed that way, aren’t we? Most of us are ashamed by the sin in our life. It’s easy to just turn our eyes from it, or close them altogether. To run and hide. Ignore it and hope it grows bored with us and moves on.
But what’s the worst thing you can do when being attacked by something or someone? Answer: Turn your back. Once you retreat, once you give ground, you are toast my friend.
I opened my Bible tonight and prayed for God to place a scripture on my heart. To show me what I needed to see. It’s been a rough week already, and I am drained emotionally, physically, spiritually. And I’ve been running.
The scripture I landed on was 1 Chronicles 11:13-15. It talks about the mighty men of David. “Now there the Philistines were gathered for battle, and there was a field full of barley. And the people fled from the Philistines. But they (David’s men) stationed themselves in the midst of that field, defended it, and killed the Philistines. And the Lord saved them by a great deliverance.
After reading this, I backtracked to Chapter 10 where it talks about the demise of Saul and his sons, who also fled the Philistines and were slain on Mount Gilboa. Following their lead, all the men of Israel who were in that valley saw they had fled and “they forsook their cities and fled; then the Philistines came and dwelt in them.” It closes by saying that Saul “died for his unfaithfulness” because he didn’t keep the word of the Lord and trusted in sources other than the Lord for his direction. As a result, God also turned the kingdom over to David.
Feels like God is telling me that I need to stand firm in the face of sin. To hold my ground and look it in the eyes. Fortify myself in Him and fight back. Attack it head on. And He will deliver me. If I retreat, I simply allow sin to move into my space and reside. Take over. Assault me and those close to me. And my lack of faith will not only negatively impact my situation but also might serve as a stumbling block to others who see me running. It will not allow me to be a positive influence and leader.
My goal is to not go down without a fight the next time sin comes into sight. Not to give any additional ground. And definitely not turn my back. This is a battle I can win. It’s a battle I must win if I want to continue my journey.
A few years back, I served as an adjunct professor for a communications course. In that one semester, I learned two important things about teachers. 1. They are totally underappreciated. Wow, is that a tough job! 2. They don’t’ know it all.
As I stood there every Wednesday night, it became more and more clear to me that as an “authority” on communications I was expected to know all the answers and to have it all figured out. I didn’t. Not even close. Nor does any other professor or instructor who graces the classroom, no matter how experienced and educated he or she may be.
This is important because it reflects how many of us look for God. We look for him in authority figures, or unassailable icons like Billy Graham. We hang our spiritual hats on the religious leaders and “prophets” of our time. We expect they will have all the answers, and that they will guide us to a better place, closer to God.
This is why many of us have our faith shaken at its very foundation when a priest inappropriately touches an altar boy or a pastor is exposed for having an affair. Or even as simple as a church elder wronging us in some way or showing up as “unchristian” in some scenario. Putting this much pressure on spiritual leaders is as wise as expecting the same from our athletic heroes, who routinely show up in strip clubs with trash bags full of cash, drive their cars off cliffs, assault their wives and girlfriends and get publicly humiliated for having more mistresses than clubs in their golf bags.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 – For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.
Powerful verse if you are paying attention to it. I’m not suggesting that it’s perfectly okay that a man of God sins in a way that not only impacts himself and his family but potentially everyone who holds him in high regard. Or that our spiritual leaders are having a tough time taking a higher moral ground than our celebrity athletes. But I am suggesting that each and every Christian leader you choose to follow is flawed. He may not be pistol-whipping people in a back alley or juicing with performance enhancing drugs before taking the pulpit, but everyone has demons, wounds, internal battles that can easily spill into external wars.
Men and women who share the word of God and lead congregations have special assignments from on high. However, we shouldn’t hold them accountable to the standards forced upon them to be perfect, when the Bible clearly states in multiple places that the potential for perfection in man does not exist.
So we should be forgiving of their sins and learning from them. Even though they typically are more sensational, with higher impact and much greater visibility than when we mess up, these leaders are after all human. We should never lose sight of that truth as we follow them.
Additionally, we shouldn’t take every word and message verbatim with no questioning or no seeking on our part to define what is true for us. We are all tour guides who haven’t actually been to the place we’re talking about. Who knows how wrong we’ve got parts of it. I’m not saying that no one out there has insight, or that no one knows anything. I’m not saying that God hasn’t shared wisdom with us, directly and indirectly, through His word.
I’m just saying that God wants to speak to us individually and if we open ourselves to Him, insight will come. We need to spend less time wandering around and showing up like sheep hoping some smart or inspired person will lead us to a deeper relationship. God doesn’t call us to be spoon fed by corporate worship. He calls for a one-to-one relationship.
1 Corinthians 1:20-22 – Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
And finally, we should not limit our search for God among people who “know it all.”
In the past year, I’ve been introduced and exposed to Christians who are struggling with sins and circumstances in their lives, including infidelity, sexual addictions, dependencies on drugs and alcohol, depression, anxiety, foreclosure, bankruptcy, abuse, neglect, abandonment, criminal activity, divorce, death, unemployment and sickness. You could easily draw the conclusion that these people can’t teach us much about God. They definitely don’t have all the answers. In fact, they probably don’t have ANY of them.
And you’d be sorely misguided in that assumption. In these beautiful and broken people, in each and every one of them, I’ve seen God, I’ve seen Him work, I’ve seen Him redeem and be glorified. And I’ve seen it in a way that traditional worship and corporate religious experiences can’t, and probably won’t, show me. Go back and review the history of how God has shared His heart with His people. He has most commonly used busted, broken, fatally flawed men like the disciples and the most ordinary, unassuming and sin-pressed people He could find.
So, why is it that today we place unrealistic expectations upon our Christian leaders and demand that they successfully live out a fairy tale, Hollywood existence where they shower us with perfect prophecy and guide us perfectly down a golden path to God? The higher the pedestal, the farther the fall. Might I suggest we recognize that our leaders have a critically important role, but not an all-encompassing one? That we remember to err is human? That we take more responsibility on ourselves to see God as He intended? Through personal relationship and totally unvarnished gritty, real and redeeming experiences with the battered, the bruised and the broken around us.
Ever since Adam and Eve, temptation has been a crushing device for the devil. It is a wildly effective technique because it plays so well to our human nature. (Mark 14:38 – The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.) I see temptation in my own life, of course. And I see it clearly in the lives of those around me. It really doesn’t matter your struggle: Alcohol. Depression. Anger. Drugs. Sex. Lying. Cheating. Chocolate Cake. Country Music. There are shades of temptation to match any weakness you have. You can count on it.
And while temptation can take me down before I know what hit me a great deal of the time, I am convinced that in the end, it is a gift from God. Because, while God doesn’t tempt, he doesn’t prevent it either. And by allowing us to face our own humanity, to wage our own wars (with His support) and to wrestle with our own personal struggles, He provides the opportunity for us to grow in Him.
James 1:12 -15 – Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. When desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
Temptation is a useful diagnostic tool. It is the first sign something is wrong. that something deep inside is bubbling up. It is a symptom with a root cause. It shows you a reflection. We shouldn’t view it as the problem itself. We should look harder for what facilitates the internal urge that leads us to be tempted in the first place.
Temptation is also an opportunity for us to develop perseverance. To sharpen our sword. To further our faith. To make Satan flee. It provides us with opportunities to lean on God and to see Him deliver. To build our resolve. To defy gravity.
1 Corinthians 10: 13 – No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
Temptation is a commonplace burden. We all face it. We all fail. To quote the great slugger/philosopher Yogi Berra, “If the fans don’t come out to the ball park, you can’t stop them.” I translate that to mean that there will be some battles you don’t win. Don’t let the losses influence you more than the victories.
Obviously, if you don’t handle temptation well, you will find yourself quickly drifting away from God’s Will. The burden of sin will grow. And ironically, the temptations will fade. At the point where you are fully committed to a specific sin, there is no need for you to be tempted, now is there? When sin is “full-grown” it doesn’t require nurturing.
So with that frame of mind, you should be welcoming of the temptation. It means you’re likely headed in the right direction and that you have been deemed worthy of battle by your maker. There is a struggle with a sin within you, and you are being presented with an opportunity to stamp it out. May your next battle be a victory!
I’ve been working on this post for a few weeks now. It’s been exceptionally hard to successfully fight for 15 minutes of uninterrupted writing time. Finally, I’m here. The good news is that God has continued to reinforce this content with me several times. It seems I’m exposed almost daily to a quote or situation or song where this is the featured subject matter. It’s like He doesn’t want me to forget the topic at hand before I sit down to capture it in written word. He knows me all too well.
We all have wounds. Delivered to us at an early age. Dug deeper over time and with experience. They run to the bone. They bleed. The real problem is we are experts at self medication. We cover these wounds. We numb the pain. We distract ourselves from them until we no longer can feel the gaping, gushing hole. Until we no longer even acknowledge they are part of who we are.
I’m learning that it is much better to expose wounds. It’s not always the best practice for physical ailments, but when it comes to spiritual aches, band aids and wraps and medicines only infect and disease. They cause wounds to fester. If we fail to expose our wounds to our consciousness and air them out, they will produce emotions that take over. Emotions require energy to sustain themselves. They feed off actions and reactions. This generates sin. It’s really a vicious cycle.
I unintentionally put my family in danger recently because of this very thing. I have a wound. I’ve discussed it before. It has everything to do with not measuring up. Needing validation. When I allow myself to suppress that wound, bury it, temporarily put it out of my consciousness, I breed emotions that demand actions to thrive. Those actions can range from shouting to outbursts to tears to self deprecating humor. I magnify obstacles and build mountains out of mole hills.
On the day in question, I freaked out just a bit about being late (mostly because of a string of dumb mistakes on my part) and made a few ill-advised maneuvers on the road in our swagger wagon (which is code for mini van. you must watch this video: http://tiny.cc/6b70p). In the process I found myself in a situation where a very scary guy was attempting to follow us home to enact revenge for my temporary NASCARlepsy. For just a moment, I let rage consume me. And I put myself and my family in potential danger. If you suppress your wounds, you make them impact you more deeply. And they can set snowballs into motion that have the potential to generate avalanches.
If we maintain our awareness of the wounds we have, and the likely emotions that result, we can prevent some of the negative scenarios from playing out, or at least react and respond better amidst an emotional flare up. We’ll understand the cause of what we’re feeling and see more clearly how to positively impact the effect.
James 1:23-24 – Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror. And, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
We have to be self-aware. We have to expose and embrace our wounds. Keep them top of mind so that we can readily understand the emotions when they present themselves. If you name your wound and keep it present in your mind, you limit the power it can hold over you.
Conversely, I’ve also been told by God in COUNTLESS ways as of late, that my wound can actually be my weapon.
I was recently in church for the first time in six weeks. Immediately, the worship leader shouted from the stage, “Our ministry can come from our misery.”
Shortly afterward, we sang a song called Beautiful Things (http://tiny.cc/t7se7). Talk about powerful. There is a line in the song that asks, “Could a garden come up from this ground?” Of course the answer is yes. As the chorus goes…”You make beautiful things out of the dust. Beautiful things out of us.” This preceded a sermon on using spiritual gifts.
About the same time, a new friend shared a quote from Robert Bly on my blog in response to an earlier post I had written: “Where a man’s wound is, there he will find his genius.”
And finally, just last night, I was reminded that my deepest wound can and will be my gold, my gift, my genius. Basically, God has stopped just short of renting out one of those billboards where He writes in white against a black background and offers a pithy quote. I thought I should go ahead and get this post up before He blew any of His advertising budget on me.
So I leave you with a few questions that I’ve begun asking myself. What sins are you feeding your emotions? What wounds are causing those emotions? What would it take for you to starve the emotions and remove the sin? How can you make this very thing in your life that breeds negativity and transform it into a positive and powerful force?
It’s a simple, three-step process. First, expose your wounds. Then, embrace your wounds. And finally, exploit your wounds for the genius they hold inside. Let your misery become your ministry.
I was working in the backyard last week, weeding flowerbeds. There was a plant in a tangled mess, intertwined with a clump of weeds, fighting for its life, being choked slowly to death. There was only room for one set of roots, and I noticed that as usual, the weeds were choking the plant and not the other way around. Seems clear from this picture of nature that we need to clear out the weeds before we can grow. We need to remove one set of roots to make room for the other. And even then, we have to continually maintain.
I believe there are areas of your life where you can slowly work over time to get them right. Just pull a weed or two here and there. Everything will work out fine. In other areas of your life, possibly in places where you struggle the most, you almost have to put two fists into the dirt and unearth the evil, get it caked under your fingernails, paper cuts on your fingers, dirt and mulch pushed deeply into the cracks of your hands, arthritic throbbing in your knuckles and joints as you ache in your back and fight a searing burn on the back of our neck from the sun. In these areas, where sin is intertwined with hope and darkness is running amok over light, where good is being choked by evil, you have to make room for the right kind of roots.
If you’re like me, you tend to get tired or uninterested and start breaking the tops off the weeds without digging out the roots. This is only a temporary fix, a momentary illusion that all is well. Meanwhile, the roots of the weeds get stronger and take a deeper hold. It’s much harder work to pull the weeds up from the roots. But the payoff is far greater. The quality of your garden is far greater. The long-term value is far greater. I wrote earlier this week about creating space. Giving something away to receive something greater. This is the reason that concept is so important. It’s not just that you won’t receive greater blessings. If you fail to remove the “old toys” you clutter your conscience. There’s only room for one set of roots. And if you leave it up to nature to choose a survivor, you will be defeated.
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