Showing posts with label shame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shame. Show all posts

Monday, November 16, 2009

YOU ARE SUCH AN IDIOT!

Today, I was keeping watch out in front of the school when a couple of female students I recognized went walking by. One of them was on the phone talking to the person who was going to give her a ride home. Having seen her picked up by her dad before I assumed that she was speaking to him. Now, I'd seen her be rude to him a time or two before but it was only in passing and it was nothing like the belligerence she put on display today in front of her friend.

As she was approaching, I heard her saying in a steadily harsher voice as the conversation quickly developed, "Where are you?" A moment later she spoke with a vitriolic voice and I could almost taste the poison that dripped from her tongue. Her countenance was wicked, yet gleeful, for the pain she was willingly inflicting upon her dad. She said, "We're going to Taco Bell. Pick us up there" ...short pause... "GOD DANG! YOU ARE SUCH AN IDIOT!" Her phone slammed shut.

I was appalled and barked at her, "Hey, is that your dad you were talking to?" She gave and affirmative response and I quickly said, "That was shameful of you!" She didn't even look at me as she walked away but her friend tried to spit some sort of uncouth words my way before tapering off into a few sour glances.

I was aggravated for the duration of the morning for two reasons. Her father was to blame for setting up such lousy boundaries and she was responsible for her rebelliousness. What led to such a relationship between her and her father? A friend suggested that perhaps it was a powerful sense of guilt or shame on the part of the father. He may have done something terribly wrong to her in the past and, knowing his guilt, allowed her to get away with whatever she wanted. How terrible though. If that is the case, guilt obviously did not motivate him to love his daughter. In fact, by allowing her to live such a shameful life he was hating her.

I realized in my anger that I was not hoping for healing for the two of them so I began to pray that the Lord would reveal His loving-kindness to them. In so praying, I realized that my nature was that of the girl's to her father. I was living as an enemy to God, spitting in his face and defiling his goodness. Yet, he refused to allow me, as a wayward child, to live in such a wicked state. He was not ashamed of His own nature and He knew how to win my heart. He drew a boundary around me and said, "this far shall you fall and no further." Then He caught me in His hands and lifted me up. He taught me honesty to admit to Him my hatreds and misgivings and in so doing I learned how to trust in Him. This trust did not come simply because I could speak to Him, but because I could see His grace poured out into my heart. He did not allow me to continue to hate Him!

He called out my shameful behavior but, more than that, He rectified it. He brought light to my darkness and exposed my need. There was a dark hole in my heart that had sucked all the joy around me into it and dissolved it. In seeing this, I was left to stew in my own guilt and I KNEW that God was going to crush me. Yet, in His mercy as my perfect Father, God reached out His hands of blessing and offered to me gifts of a clear conscience, forgiveness of sin, peace of mind, kindness of heart, eternal life and a relationship with His Son forever. He simply asked me, "Have you learned your lesson?"

With my mouth wide open in astonishment, having expected judgment, I could only say, "Yes, Father. Forgive me." My life started at that point and the story I take with me from this time until Heaven will be one of praise for that gift of grace and forgiveness.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Good food makes her clothes fall off.

This video is a must watch. A crazy woman discusses why Adam and Eve stopped walking around naked then segues into the transgendered mayor segment and blasts into various other topics such as how Oregon would rather pay to euthanize a woman rather than paying to treat her cancer. I will focus on the crazy woman.



The crazy lady (Rae), says, "Adam and Eve were naked and everything was just fine until they ate bad food and then they got really self-conscious." Perhaps Adam and Eve became farty and bloated when the bad food fermented in their bellies. In light of this, I'm sure that their first clothing was, in fact, a thick diaper woven from fig leaves and animal pelts. Praise Gaia that this woman purged the mysterious "bad food" from her diet and shed her FigSkin Depends.

A friend of mine said to me, "Now I know to keep eating bad food so my clothes don't decide to fall off..." Her hilarious comment reminded me of the country song by Joe Nichols, "Tequila makes her clothes fall off." In place of Tequila, substitute what Rae says about bad food and you'll understand her shining brilliance (PBUH). Oh, how like a laxative it penetrates even the deepest of dark places within diapers to release the flood gates of "truth!" To put it bluntly and with less sarcasm we would say in the Marines, "If it looks like crap and it smells like crap it must be (you guessed it) CRAP!" I mean, at least Joe Nichols gives a probable reason for why a person would disrobe, but bad food? Give me a break!

Defying reason, Rae manages to construct an unholy union between good food and nakedness and becomes, herself, a great, stinking love child of twisted thoughts and lies. My wisdom would be on par with her's if I stripped after drinking grape juice. After all, it could have been wine, right? I would just be looking forward to the promise of fermented liquids in my belly to release my inhibitions... Although, in actuality, the inhibitions I would be releasing (like Rae's) could only be contained in the largest loin cloth of Adam and Eve's invention described above.

Like the king in Hans Christian Andersen's famous fable, "The Emperor's New Clothes," this woman is clothed in shame that she can't even see. She does not wish to appear stupid and so, to avoid the shame of her private fable, she has gone public with her nudity and is laid bare. Though the proverbial child has pointed out her nakedness, she holds her lofty head up high and flaunts her foolishness for all to see.

I write this only to point out the absurd claim of this woman. I mean to judge her words and conduct because it is proper to unmask the lie. To be honest though, it is a perfect mental picture for me of what I am like before God. I have lived in a world that to one degree or another has been contrived by my own lies. I subconsciously live by the famous mantra that "if I repeat a lie often enough it becomes my truth." I am just more skilled than Rae at hiding my heart from those around me.

There is One whose eye has pierced every layer of my clothing and knows even my innermost being. I shall one day stand before His judgment seat and He will demand that I give an account of my life. Will He see that it was built upon the lie of my own desires or, as Rae says, "whatever feels right"? Every one does only what is right in their own eyes. Thus, how worthless my gifts will be to God when I stand before Him naked with my heart fully exposed. As Paul says in Romans 7:24, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

Thus, it was not "bad food" that made Adam and Eve "self-conscious"; it was their disobedience and sin towards God that made them ashamed. However, God, in His love, covered their shame (or nakedness as it were) because He took compassion on them. The covering He provided for them (animal skins) was a sign of Christ's sacrifice which alone could cover all sins perfectly and remove their shame. He was naked on the cross when He suffered the shame of our sins. He was exposed and laid bare so that in a very real way we could approach God without guilt as "naked" ones. He bore the wounds of our iniquities so that we could be healed in truth (unlike Rae's healing lie).

In Christ, we have nothing left to hide and can close with the rest of the thought from Romans 7:25 where Paul writes, "Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!"