Reflections on Proverbs: I Am Too Stupid

Today's verses come from Chapter 30 of Proverbs, which taken as a whole focuses on the need for humility.

Surely I am too stupid to be a man.
  I have not the understanding of a man.
I have not learned wisdom,
  nor have I knowledge of the Holy One. Prov. 30:2-3

I often wonder about the certainty with which believers assert their beliefs in terms of faith practice and judgment. Some people, for instance, fervently believe that homosexuality is a sin so despised by God that they will lash out in hate to inflict pain on innocent bystanders to make their point. Others believe that it's perfectly Godly to call in bomb threats to the mosque being built in their community. These people quote Scripture to justify their actions. They think God is on their side, that they are on God's side.

When is hate ever an act of wisdom? "Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do."

Over and over again, Proverbs teaches that wisdom comes from trusting God, from walking humbly in His ways, from being honest, faithful, and good, from sowing seeds of peace and harmony among family, friends, and neighbors. Think of the lesson of Ruth, who humbly trusted God by maintaining bonds of family, and came through hard times to a place of honor in the lineage of Jesus.

But we fail often, don't we? We think we know the mind of God and act out in certainty with anger or hate when we should be humble, leave justice and judgment to God, and share His love for us with the world boldly and faithfully. We are like the speaker in Chapter 30...we have not learned wisdom...or knowledge of the Holy One.

May God open our hearts with His eternal and unchanging love so that we are filled with that love to overflowing, and wisely share that love abundantly with the world.


How do you fail to be humble and wise? Do you give vent to hate or anger and seek to justify those feelings by invoking God? How can you move from stupidity to wisdom, and embrace being a beloved child of an infinitely loving Father?

That Long Groove

As soon as I saw this on Pinterest, I nodded and thought, "Yeah. That's me." How about you?

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No Shame

When I saw this on Pinterest, I immediately pinned it on my Living Faith board.

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A friend recently confided in me that she was starting to feel regret over a decision she made years ago. That decision, which certainly felt like the right thing at the time, now has her doubting herself. Should she have done it? Was she being weak or faithless? Did she sin? How did she hurt others with her choice?

These doubts can assail any of us. They are the what-ifs of our lives. And they are entirely pointless in our faith life.

When we know and accept that God loves us, completely and unconditionally and infinitely as only God can, we know that we are safe and secure forever. No one can shame us. No one can use our sins against us.

Of course we make mistakes. Of course we make bad decisions. Of course there are consequences for those decisions, and sometimes the consequences are dire. Consider the relationship of Jacob and Esau. Jacob lied to his father and cheated his brother. God still used him for good. Consider Judah's treatment of Tamar. He put her in an impossible position, forced her to sin and risk death by stoning. God turned it to good. Consider Saul's collusion with Rome against the early Christians. God turned him into a powerful witness. Consider the crucifixion of Jesus. God turned it to the greatest good ever known.

Over and over, God takes terrible sinners and uses them for His purpose. Over and over, God takes terrible situations of violence, terror, horrible cruelty, and transforms them to further his Kingdom.

Even when we try to live faithfully, we'll never be good enough, smart enough, helpful enough, generous enough, kind enough. Grace, God's grace, saves us. Completely. Utterly. Unfailingly. Every single time.

If you're feeling ashamed, if you're feeling regret, please pray. Please hand it all over to God, put it all at the foot of the cross. Because you are caught in His grace. Always.

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There is no shame that grace cannot cover...no sin that God cannot forgive. Fall before Him in repentance, and He will lift you up in Grace.

Thanks be to God!

Matthew 7:3-5 and Social Media

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

I have a friend who is forced by virtue of her job to participate in social media, and she doesn't like it. Too often, she sees the nastiness and ugliness and bullying rampant online. People she knows--well-educated, Christian grown-ups--post cruelty and meanness that shock her.

My own exposure to social media is overwhelmingly positive, largely because I'm highly selective and limit my involvement in healthy ways. I'm fortunate in my friends, too, but I will not hesitate to unfriend someone who gets nasty. In over seven years on Facebook, however, I've only unfriended one person.

During elections, I hide people who post political stuff and unhide them a few weeks after the election. It does shock me to see people post really vicious political rhetoric. How is this helpful? How does it further God's kingdom? What would Jesus say?

How would He say it?

The passage from Matthew quoted above gives us guidance.

Plenty has been said about internet nastiness stemming from distance. Because we can't see the objects of our attacks, we lose all sense of propriety and kindness. We judge harshly based on a tiny speck of information, and we run with that in ways that show our hypocrisy, that reveal the planks in our own eyes.

Not long ago, an anonymous high school student started using social media to make our schools a better place by tweeting compliments and positive news. He or she also wrote the school board and administration encouraging them to have a Random Acts of Kindness week...an idea that principals in all buildings ran with. It was wonderful!

One school board member, however, was bothered by the student's anonymity and wanted him/her to reveal his/her name, expressing his request in language that was not entirely tactful and could have been construed as vaguely threatening. It's very hard for me to understand why he is so disturbed by the situation and why he would seek to make an issue of it in the first place.

I'm not alone in being baffled by his attitude. The rest of the board, the administrators, and many others in the community have lauded this anonymous student's transformation of social media into a force for good. Frankly, I feel that his or her anonymity is brilliant. It focuses attention on the deeds rather than the person.

We need more humility in the world.

The backlash on social media against the disgruntled school board member, however, has been unfortunate, disturbing, and deeply ironic. Last fall, I joined a group on Facebook that was created to inform people of good things going on in our community and schools, but the nastiness that has cropped up on that page as a result of this situation and others has turned me off. Personal attacks on the board member are inappropriate and unhelpful.

It's one thing to disagree with a person; it's another thing entirely to indulge in ad hominem nastiness.

We all have planks in our eyes, and if we've make honest attempts to remove them, we learn just how hard it is and how much it hurts. If we follow Christ's teachings and trust God through our own struggles, we grow in compassion for others and their specks. If we actually succeed in removing our planks (praise Jesus!), we should want to remove another's speck as gently and kindly as possible.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

If we're ignoring the plank in our own eye while poking painfully and angrily at the speck in another's eye, we push God's kingdom of love further away, we judge without compassion, we make the world an uglier place. Spreading cruelty and viciousness by attacking this board member distracts from the good deeds promoted by the anonymous student. It turns social media once again into the bully-run institution the student is fighting.

Clear your own eye first. Then exercise compassion and kindness toward others. Eventually, we'll all see better.

How have you been a hypocrite? When have you seen others flaws but ignored your own? How have you worked within yourself to overcome this very human tendency? What other Bible verses help you adjust your vision to kindness rather than judgment?

Reflections on Proverbs: A Glad Heart

A glad heart makes a cheerful countenance,
  but by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken.  Proverbs 15:13

Today, as I packed and addressed a birthday package for my niece at the post office, an older gentleman walked by. I glanced up, made eye contact, and smiled. He beamed back at me and quoted, "A joyful heart makes a cheerful face!"

We chatted briefly while he waited his turn at the window, and I commented that God blesses us daily. He said, "He does! I'm 78 and here walking around!"

He completed his business at the window and returned to me, saying, "I give one of these a day, and today, I just have to give it to you. My name is Chuckles."

He handed me this.

When I shared the story with George tonight, he said, "I know that guy! He goes to the Y." He described Chuckles and speculated that he might be a retired minister. Whoever he is, he spreads joy throughout our small town, and what a wonderful blessing he gave me today.

I knew the verse Chuckles quoted, but I didn't remember the second half of it until I looked it up tonight. "A glad heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken." Verses in Proverbs often engage in this rhetorical reversal...mentioning one thing and then its opposite. Just two verses later, we read, "All the days of the afflicted are evil, but a cheerful heart has a continual feast." Proverbs 15:15

I thought about these two emotions--joy and sorrow-- and realized that Chuckles has the right of it, going out into the community to share his continual feast.

None of us can escape sorrow in our lives. Just think of the example of Christ. He wept. He knew sorrow and suffering and had his body broken on the cross as one of us for all of us. His pain became our salvation.

No one is immune to sorrow. At 78 years of age, Chuckles has no doubt known sorrow; his spirit has no doubt been broken...repeatedly. But by knowing his God, by trusting Him, by filling himself with that Divine Love, his spirit has also healed repeatedly so he can claim the name Chuckles.

I, too, have known sorrow, stress, anxiety, fear, brokenness. Judging from my massage therapist's comments on the tightness of my shoulder muscles, I am carrying some of those negative things around inside me right now. In the past few days, I've felt lost, confused, and profoundly worried. But despite all that, this morning, I smiled with a glad heart at a stranger in the post office, and God, through another glad heart, gave me candy.

Wow.

It's not often God smacks us in the heart so obviously, bluntly, unsubtly. When He does, we had best pay attention and be deeply grateful for the gift, the reminder, the blessing. How can we not be glad of heart when we know, especially in the midst of our earthly sorrow or stress or worry, that He loves us, will always love us, will feed us a continual feast?

Rejoice in the Lord always!


Has God ever smacked you in the heart with a blessing? Have you ever felt that gladness of heart at times of suffering, sorrow, or worry? What can you do to be that blessing of a cheerful countenance to others?

Reflections on Proverbs: The Toils of Sin, Part 7

Finally! Here is our last post on the Toils of Sin. Whew. That took longer than I expected. Thank you all for your patience.


As a reminder, our verses for this series on the toils of sin are these:

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
  and he is caught in the toils of his sin. Proverbs 5:22

There are six things which the Lord hates,
  seven which are an abomination to him;
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
  and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
  feet that make haste to run to evil,
false witness who breathes out lies,
  and a man who sows discord among brothers. Proverbs 6:16-19

Today, we're ending our reflections on sin with the final sin listed as an abomination to God: sowing discord among brothers.

I have found reflecting on this sin particularly difficult. I am a first-born pleaser who wants everyone to play nicely and get along. Peace and harmony are a priority for me, and in many ways, I surround myself with friends who do not sow discord. Perhaps sowers of discord avoid me because they sense that I'm not going to allow their divisiveness to affect my group.

In my personal life, this sin feels distant and hard to relate to, but when I cast my mind into the public sphere, it comes home. Politics has never been a place of harmony and niceness, but today's climate of polarized parties feels particularly toxic. This polarization seems true from local politics (our school board...oh, my!) all the way to global relations.

Discord among brothers happens easily enough without sinister forces encouraging it. When we see extremists on either side of the political spectrum manipulating the media, creating sensational stories without basis in fact, distracting the government, the media, and us with mirages, we need to be very, very careful how we react.

But how do we know the stories are false?

There's the rub. It's nearly impossible to know.

Another fact that confuses this sin is that sometimes, the sowers are not even aware they are doing anything wrong. I've watched threads on Facebook turn nasty in an instant when someone posts something inflammatory. One Facebook thread in our neighborhood group pops immediately to mind. Someone posted something incredibly nasty, and a number of people jumped in, shouting through their keyboards.

Once things had gotten out of hand, the originator of the thread actually stepped in and apologized. She said her husband pointed out to her that her language had been inappropriate and unkind. She hadn't meant to sow discord, but in her overly emotional state, she'd over-reacted. One could sense from her apology that she both confused and embarrassed by the result of her ill-chosen words.

This is where grace and forgiveness step into the picture. Her apology was accepted, others also apologized, and harmony was restored. And this is where we can see that sowers of discord among brothers may not always be sinister operatives in the shadows...they can be any one of us, over-reacting and venting unhealthily in a group, working against harmony, however unintentionally.

When we look at sowing discord among brothers this way, I am guilty as charged. Aren't we all at some time in our lives guilty as charged?

Fortunately, we have a framework for return to harmony as soon as we realize we've sinned. Apologize. Ask forgiveness. Pray for mercy, grace, and forgiveness. And when another needs our mercy, grace, and forgiveness, we give them freely. As they have been given to us.

Let he or she who has not sinned cast the first stone.



In Conclusion on Sin

Notice how all the sins God hates hurt others...individually and in community. Pride, lying, violence, conspiracy, hasty evil, false witness, and sowing discord disrupt relationships and communities. Getting along requires us all to behave, but most of the time, it's so much easier to see how others are sinning than how we ourselves might be guilty, too. 

But we are all sinners, all flawed, all separated from God by our pride and our self-righteousness. We live in a democracy where we are all equal in sin and all equally loved by God. Instead of making us feel bad or ashamed or unworthy because of our sin, God loves us through it all, forgives us each and every moment of each and every day. When we own our sins and acknowledge our unworthiness, we humble ourselves before an amazing God who washes us clean by His death on the cross, welcomes us into His kingdom, and crowns us as His beloved children.

It saddens me to think that there are people who wallow in the shame of their sin, who believe they are too contaminated to be forgiven by God or anyone else. I'm particularly sad when Christians encourage this shame and sow discord between others and God. No one has sunk too low for God to redeem. No one.

If you have not yet humbled yourself before God and asked his forgiveness for your sins, please let go of shame. Open your heart to His love and forgiveness. I promise you. It will change your life.

If you have committed yourself to following Jesus, don't slip into pride or self-righteousness...oh how easy it is to slip! Stay alert to your own sin, and remember to thank God for his blessings and share them with the world.  

Let us pay God's love and forgiveness forward in a world that desperately needs love and forgiveness.

Amen.

Reflections on Proverbs: The Toils of Sin, Part 6

Many thanks to my readers for their patience for the past two months!



As a reminder after my long absence, our verses for this series of posts on the toils of sin are as follows:

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
  and he is caught in the toils of his sin. Proverbs 5:22

There are six things which the Lord hates,
  seven which are an abomination to him;
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
  and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
  feet that make haste to run to evil,
false witness who breathes out lies,
  and a man who sows discord among brothers. Proverbs 6:16-19

Today, we're focusing on the "false witness who breathes out lies." Earlier, the author lists "a lying tongue," but here, the lies are in a public setting. In the Ten Commandments, this is stated as "you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." What makes this sin any different from a lying tongue? False witness places a lie in the larger realm of community and results in larger injustice than a private lie. A false witness doesn't just lie; he convinces the community that he is telling the truth, and the members of the community become--often unwitting--perpetrators of the lie.

Community is poisoned by false witness.

My husband loves watching the Tour de France every year and I watched along with him (Well, parts of it. A wife's patience can only go so far.) I admired the racers for their skill and hard work and determination. I admired Lance Armstrong for his comeback from cancer and amazing repeat wins.

But with recent revelations about wide-spread doping, I admit to utter cynicism over the whole sport. When George tells me that someone won such-and-such race, I say, "Oh, he doped the best!" I have lost all faith in professional cycling in view of the conspiracy of silence and lies, and find that loss of faith leaking over into my appreciation of triathlon and other sports as well. George resented my snarky comments about the latest winners of the Ironman Championships.

He still has faith that his sport is clean. I do not.

So many people denied seeing the doping. So many people denied doping. So many people were doping. And millions of fans of international cycling were fooled. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

While the cycling scandal was an example of deliberate conspiracy to break the rules, how often might false witnesses believe what they say is true? How often might they merely spread rumors, taking gossip for fact and sharing it as such?

I think of all those urban-legend e-mails targeting Muslims after 9/11, political issues warped beyond recognition and perpetuated by false witness ("my cousin's best friend saw this happen!"), hate fostered by false witness in courts of law (the Duke lacrosse scandal, for example).

How often might false witnesses misinterpret what they see or hear, draw wrong conclusions, and speak those conclusions out loud? This is, I think, the most common form of false witness, the form of this sin that all of us--even the most honest and faithful--can fall into unwittingly. We trust our own judgment and we are wrong.

One way to fight this impulse to sin is to reserve judgment and habitually err on the side of compassion and love. This is a habit that can be cultivated through prayer, intentionality, and practice.

Trust in fairness and justice within community are destroyed by false witness. Have you ever seen this happen? Have you ever been in a family or church or business or group torn apart by false witness? Did you see it heal, or did the consequences of this sin lead to punishment through generations?