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Consider: The Plan

July 30, 2010

Part 5 of “Consider This”

“…describe the temple to the people of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their sins. Let them consider the plan, and if they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design…”(Ezekiel 43:10)

When I first read this, I got hung up in the middle, right on the word “ashamed” and didn’t really feel like blogging about it; but the more I looked at it, the more God revealed to me the beauty of this passage; the beauty of what He was revealing to Ezekiel. I am seeing that this is a “get it, got it, good” kind of verse; but to arrive at the good part, you have to get it, got it?

Do I get it about my sin or I do I think I am pretty OK with the occasional deviance. I want to say that I really get it about my sin; sometimes I do; but there are many days I think I am pretty OK (that habit of always justifying, you know?) Being that I don’t have to go and sacrifice a bird or animal for my sins, getting blood on my hands, seeing the destruction of a living creature for my wrong-doings, has made me pretty casual about my sin. I can sin against God and man and drive on; sin being a hardly noticeable speed bump: what was that? Oh, nothing.

Because I don’t usually have to confess my sins out-loud to anyone, I can mostly tiptoe into my room and whisper an “I’m sorry” to God and I am good to go. What must it have been like during the “time of the sacrifice” in Israel with all those sinners walking around, carting their offering for only one reason: they sinned? There was no sneaking into the temple. We are the same sinners today; it’s just that only a few of us have to go public.

In the passage in Ezekiel God is speaking through him and saying I ought to be ashamed of my sins, ashamed of what I have done. To be ashamed is to feel shame, guilt, or disgrace. In the Biblical context (as used in Ezekiel 43:10) another way of saying it would be “to be humiliated.”

Wordcentral.com gives a good “word history” of humiliation:

In modern English we sometimes say that a person who has been criticized or humiliated has been put down. We speak as though the person had actually been forced to the ground or made to bow down in front of someone else. The origins of the word humiliate itself also suggest the idea of physically putting someone down to the ground.

Who chooses humiliation? Not I. I also don’t like the idea of someone physically putting me down to the ground and forcing humiliation upon me.

I may have mentioned this before, but a while ago I was reading a book (Excellent read: Leading with a Limp: Turning Your Struggles into Strengths) and the author pointed out that the word “humility” comes out of the word “humiliation.” In other words, really understanding humility usually requires humiliation. At the time, I was walking through a difficult situation and the last thing I wanted was more humiliation; I wanted validation; I wanted relief. But the truth of that statement just landed on me; I know it is true. Arriving at a place of humility isn’t something I could just decide to do or not to do; if during a time of humiliation my hands remain open to God, humble is something I would be a little more of afterward, naturally.

You have to know, I don’t like anything about that process. But after, after there is something I haven’t expected: actual acknowledgment and then, freedom. There is one less thing to try and prove, one less thing to try to impress people with, one less hidden thing, one less layer; I have found, after, that I am standing before God, agreeing with Him about me: “Yes, this is really all there is.” His hand is on my shoulder, and we carry on.

Can I be ashamed of my sins without God being heavy-handed with me? I am thinking about this and realizing yes, I can, but it takes practice. Confession and repentance are both “action words” and I tend to be a lot less action-oriented about my sin. The parenting parallels are amazing. When do you get to the point where you don’t have to tell your child, “at this point you should say, ‘I’m sorry’.” Every time I have to say that, I have just removed the opportunity for sincerity. Shame is not a “repeat after me” scenario. True shame comes from a heart that has felt the cause and effect of sin and is broken up about it. True shame comes when having a right relationship really, really, really matters; it matters more than anything.

Being ashamed/humiliated clears the way for God’s plan to be seen. Looking back at Ezekiel, God has this amazing plan for how everything could work, how everything could look (if you just flip back a few chapters and even just scan the titles you can see how detailed God’s plans are; amazing). He has it all measured out, the vision is so clear in His mind. I believe He has one such plan for me, an ideal future that looks like me following Him and us engaging in something above and beyond the drudgery and pointlessness of a self-serving, sin-filled life.

This is what is encouraging about today’s passage. I think God is standing by and saying, “Just admit it.” As soon as we do so, with humility, He is rolling out the blue-prints to show us what is next. It isn’t that our sin doesn’t matter, that there are not consequences, but God factors those in. He hasn’t given up on us. He doesn’t say, “Once the heat is off, come back and talk to Me.” God walks with us, among our ruins, saying, “Picture this, we could put this here and that there, and you could use this for that…”

God is always wanting to make known to us the design.

—Teresa Klassen (http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

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How Many Ways Can I Be Bad?

June 24, 2010

Aren’t there a lot of things you can do wrong?

This morning I read Proverbs 11:3,

“The integrity of the upright guides them,
but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.”

“Duplicity” caught my eye so I looked it up to get its exact meaning; it is: deception by pretending to feel and act one way while feeling and acting another (wordcentral.com). Who has not done this? Can you be a human being and not do this?

If one is awestruck by the beauty and complexity of life, one must also be astonished over the incredible webwork of “evil.” I mean, how many ways can we be bad? There is “bad” that is right out there, and then there is the Pandora’s Box of back-room bad, such as this one called duplicity; I doubt it would make the top ten bad things but don’t be fooled, it is as lethal as murder.

Duplicity is acid (the kind that burns your eyes out, not the hallucinogenic). It is the thing that eats away and eventually annihilates trust. It is the “say one thing, think another” evil; it is “the fake”; it is what makes us juggle stories and habits; it is strategic deception. From the most innocent, “I’m fine” when you’re not to the “we’re fine” when you’re about to break something; duplicity misrepresents at every corner.

Little microscopic duplicity; you are a nasty one, aren’t you? You are a game at first—one that requires skill and word-power; and then you are a trip-wire. Why do I live with duplicity? “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do!!!” (Paul, in Romans 7:15). We know what duplicity feels like; it is the scab we keep picking at; the flaw that won’t let us off the hook.

How many things can I do wrong in the short amount of time I have been given? How many ways can I be bad?

Some people say, “I don’t care!” because God’s standard is too high, too impossible to meet. But “I don’t care” is just us giving up; it doesn’t fix anything; it doesn’t make it easier to live with ourselves.

The word that just came to my mind as I am writing this is “reconcile.” When I do my finances and two columns don’t agree with each other (a situation I face frequently), I need to reconcile my statement; I need to get them to agree. Duplicity is when two things are not in agreement with each other; one side is one way, the other side is another.

Jesus, recognizing our duplicity, chose to use that word “reconcile” to describe what He did on the cross. He brought agreement between us and God (we were alienated from God because of our evil behavior) and “now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation…(Colossians 1:21–23). Because of our agreement with God He shows us how to have agreement in our own heart and in how we relate to others.

On our own, we are filled with duplicity, but in Christ we are reconciled.

—Teresa Klassen (http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com/)

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