Proverbs 21:4

Haughty eyes and a proud heart—the lamp of the wicked—are sin.

I’m dealing with haughtiness right now . . . my own. Haughtiness is a superlative pride, a feeling of being or doing better than others. It’s antonym is humility. And I personally think that seeking the praises of those around you is a part of that.

Scripture is very clear. This is sin. And what’s interesting is that this verse doesn’t talk about sin that we do, but rather sin that we are . . . how we feel and think and make choices. It can be easy, within our church culture, to act like a Christian. In fact, I’ve had some Christians tell me that they never sin. And if we were speaking only of the sins that we can do, they may be right. Likely they don’t kill or steal or commit adultery. But the Lord looks past our actions into our hearts:

“The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7b NRSV).

Two people, standing side by side, could look very much the same from the outside and yet one could be truly humble and one could be truly prideful.

Tozer, in his book, That Incredible Christian, lists the attributes of a spiritual person:

1. First is the desire to be holy rather than happy.
2. A man (person) may be considered spiritual when he wants to see the honor of God advanced through his life even if it means that he himself must suffer temporary dishonor or loss.
3. The spiritual man wants to carry his cross.
4. Again, a Christian is spiritual when he sees everything from God’s viewpoint.
5. Another desire of the spiritual man is to die right rather than to live wrong.
6. The desire to see other advance at his expense is another mark of the spiritual man.
7. The spiritual man habitually makes eternity-judgements instead of time-judgements.

The fact is, the Lord is more concerned about our character than our circumstances. Scripture of replete with references of suffering and having victory through the suffering. But that victory isn’t necessary the absence of the suffering, but rather our continuing to trust and have quiet hearts in the midst of the turmoil, being more concerned about those around us than ourselves. Life isn’t about what we can achieve or gain or get or accumulate, but rather about how much we can pour ourselves out for the benefit of those around us, demonstrating the love of God to them every minute of every day.

Life as a believer is about humility: “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:25 NRSV). Today, I set my pride aside. I encourage you to look deeply in your heart to see where humility should reign and choose to allow it to do so.

© 2009 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Proverbs 21:2-3

“All deeds are right in the sight of the doer, but the Lord weighs the heart. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.” NRSV

Our elementary school is known in our community for its performing arts. Oh, we’re not a magnet school or anything. We just have a group of teachers who love kids and want those kids to have opportunities to sing and dance and act. This year, I’m in charge of the play and I’m determined to make it the best play ever, not so much in excellence of show (though I hope the kids all do their best), but technically so that all the parents can hear and see their kiddies on stage. Technical performance is demanding because it means (in this case) managing about 15 microphones, two computers, a CD player, and calling the show cues for eight student light operators and stage crew. It also happens to mean trying to keep 70 cast members moving from one place to another so that they end up on stage when they’re supposed to.

The problem is that all my good intentions of having a technically good show seem to go down the drain when a egocentric child decides that I’m the answer to their life’s problems and interrupts what I’m doing to ask me what they should do now that their pants are wet from “accidentally” being dropped in the toilet! In the midst of this, I need to be reminded: What would Jesus do?

Jesus was never afraid to stop what He was doing to minister to the people around Him. His disciples, I think, were more like me, interested in achieving the goal, while the Master was (and is) much more interested in saving the lost. This was never better exemplified then when parents began to bring their children to Jesus for His blessing. The disciples didn’t see this as part of the group’s mission and tried to send the children away:

“Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs’” (Matthew 19:13-14 NRSV).

Now we all know that the kingdom belongs not only to children. But the fact is, the kingdom belongs to those who are seeking God’s love, His blessing, His acceptance. Our Father is reaching out His hands to the lost, to the disenfranchised, to the lonely and neglected and hurting. And He reaches out His hands through our hands. We are the physical Christ in this world as His Spirit lives in us and through us. The children who come to me often come from homes where they are ignored and neglected. (Two little girls were left at school last night for an hour after practice because one girl’s mom refused to come and pick her up). The best “show” I could give isn’t the one that satisfies my pride, but rather is one where I reach out to every lonely “demanding” child to give love and mercy and, yes, even forgiveness.

© 2009 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Proverbs 20:30

“Blows that wound cleanse away evil; beatings make clean the innermost parts.” NRSV

We see sin in ourselves most often when we are in pain. In fact, it often takes the hard circumstances in life for us to even stop and listen to God. And He uses those hard circumstances to keep us from running off the precipice of the cliff of sin.

“It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. 3 David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, ‘This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite’ (2 Samuel 11:2-3 NRSV). Most of us are familiar with the adulterous affair of David and Bathsheba, the wife of one of his commanders. The Israelites built homes with flat roofs and used their roofs for rest and relaxation when it was warm. Whether or not Bathsheba chose to bath on the roof hoping to catch the eye of the king, at that moment David was presented with a choice. He didn’t have to ask who she was; he could have averted his eyes. He didn’t.

The result of their extended affair was that Bathsheba got pregnant. In a fit of panic, David ordered her husband, Uriah, to the front where he was logically killed. David then took Bathsheba into his home (and his bed) and his wife, thinking that his sin had been unseen. I’m sure that he believed that he was doing the “right” thing by marrying Bathsheba, that this marriage was a sign of penance toward God. But God wasn’t fooled. Manipulation is never part of repentance. Yes, we are to make restitution, but first comes confession. And David hadn’t confessed.

We aren’t told what happened within the palace walls as the hasty marriage took place. But I think we can image. David already had other wives and children from those marriages. I doubt that his affair was an actual secret; there are few secrets in homes filled with servants. Who knows but perhaps the righteous Abigail came to her husband in distress and concern, speaking to him gently about the sin of adultery. We do know that David’s sin was known to God and that it took the Nathan’s horrible prophecy to bring David to his knees, a prophecy that included the death of David and Bathsheba’s unborn son.

“The Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became very ill. David therefore pleaded with God for the child; David fasted, and went in and lay all night on the ground. The elders of his house stood beside him, urging him to rise from the ground; but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. On the seventh day the child died” (2 Samuel 12:15b-18a NRSV).

Suddenly the palace must have been in turmoil. A new wife. A new son. And now a dire sickness. David was frantic. Scriptures tell us that he “pleaded with God.” I’m sure his arguments included that this innocent child should not be held accountable for his own sin. But true to the prophecy, the child died. It took death to bring David to his knees, to the point where he was willing to confess and repent.

Psalm 51 is David’s confession. It is an amazing psalm because we can see the depth of David’s repentance. This man—once called a man after God’s own heart by God Himself—had now become an adulterer, a murderer, and a liar. He understood what it meant to trust your own heart and find yourself embroiled in the most painful of circumstances. He understood what it meant to stand before the Throne of the Most High and find your prayers falling on deaf ears. He finally understood that we cannot bargain with God but, instead, must lay our sins before Him for His forgiveness and trust our future into His hands.

David had likely been disappointed in all his previous marriages and may have truly found his “soulmate” (if there is such a thing) in Bathsheba, but he satisfied this lust of his flesh at an enormous price. The Lord promised that the sword would never depart from David’s house. And, in fact, his son Solomon was the last king to rule over a united nation. The 12-tribes would fight continually until the nation was, in fact, totally and utterly destroyed. It took that prophecy, it took the death of his son, it took even the threat that he might die for David to finally repent.

What will it take for you and me? Will we look at hurtful circumstances in anger, fighting with God? Or will we look to see if there is sin that His righteousness wants to expose? Only in confession can we find forgiveness. Not all painful circumstances are there because of our sin, but our first thought should be to look to our hearts to see if we need to turn (back) to the Lord.

© 2009 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Psalm 39:4

“Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is.” NRSV

Last night, I had what my grandmother might have called a heart spell. My heart began to raise and skip beats. It made a funny feeling in my chest, raised both my pulse and my blood pressure, and was, to be honest, rather disconcerting. Of course, the on-call nurse for my doctor wanted me to drive more than an hour to the insurance plan emergency room (which we didn’t do). I simply wanted it to go away so I could go to sleep.

In the darkness, waiting for sleep to come, for the first time really feeling my heart beating inside my chest (and beating somewhat irregularly), I realized how fragile life is, how little control we actually have. As much as I wanted to will it–to take control over my recalcitrant body–I could not. My heart would continue beating–or would stop–as the LORD willed, not as I willed. I had a great sense of how helpless we really are, how dependent we are upon the Lord.

The psalmist writes: “This God—His way is perfect; the promise of the Lord proves true; He is a shield for all who take refuge in Him” (Psalm 18:30 NRSV). Our ultimate enemy is death. It is the true unknown because it is the wrenching from this world to the next. We don’t travel alone, but we do travel in faith for the hand of the Savior, which will guide is, is a hand we have seen to actually see or touch. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NRSV). The conviction of things not seen. When we have faith, we reach out past what we can see or hear or smell or even prove to the perfect character of God. And in that, we put our trust.

Recently, my husband and I took two days to visit the Disney Resort in Southern California. Disney is known world-wide for creating illusions that seem real. We visited on one of the attractions called “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience” (based on the popular movie series of similar names). This attraction was a 3-D movie theater . . . and much more. Disney added physical effects (the room rocked, air shot out around your legs like mice running, water droplets were shot out of the chair in front of you) which made the visuals seem even more real.

In essence, our senses were fooled and lied to us!

Did you know that you can’t trust your senses? That they will lie to you? In a similar fashion, we can’t trust our conclusions, our assumptions, and our emotions. While we can try to become as learned, as objective, as knowledgeable as we can, in the end, everything surrounding our physical bodies can deceive us.

This is true as we are dying. The body–and the accompanying emotions—fights against death. And Paul tells us that it is unnatural for our spirits to be without some kind of body. But the reality is, what we should long for is not to keep these corruptible bodies, but to embrace our heavenly bodies:

“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling—if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:1-4 NRSV).

“We do not wish to be unclothed.” Paul isn’t talking about clothing, but rather about our spirits being housed inside some kind of body. We need bodies! God made us that way. But these bodies are temporary and imperfect. He has promised us heavenly bodies and it’s those for which we should long.

“We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8b NRSV).

Is that true of us? If the Lord is truly our Beloved, the One who has saved us from eternal hell and damnation, the One who has loved us even before we loved Him, then shouldn’t we want to be at home with Him?

© 2009 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Proverbs 20:24

“All our steps are ordered by the Lord; how then can we understand our own ways?” (NRSV)

Over Christmas break, the son of one of my fellow teachers was killed in an auto accident. Both of his parents work for our school district and are loving, wonderful people. Their younger daughter was in one of the plays I helped with. It was a devastating loss for our small community.

When it happened, I tried to get my head around it. Oh, not the fact that such a young person had died and the reason for it, but rather simply that it had happened at all. I began to think about games, in particular computer games, and the ability to “redo” a game when the outcome wasn’t what I wanted (in effect, when I lost). I began to wonder if his parents wished that they could “redo” those few hours before he died, keeping him at their home rather than allowing him to drive several hours to his house and subsequently dying.

I think that all of us, at one time or another and for one reason or another, wished that life had a “redo” button, wished that we could relive a certain situation in order to change the outcome. When Proverbs speaks of the Lord ordering our ways, some in the Christian community would see this as confirmation that God has predetermined everything that happens to us and that we don’t have free will. I personally don’t agree with that view. But what I see this as is the Old Testament version of Romans 8:28: “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (NLT).

Matthew Henry writes: “We have no foresight of future events, and therefore know not how to forecast for them: How can a man understand his own way? How can he tell what will befal him, since God’s counsels concerning him are secret, and therefore how can he of himself contrive what to do without divine direction? We so little understand our own way that we know not what is good for ourselves, and therefore we must make a virtue of necessity, and commit our way unto the Lord, in whose hand it is, follow the guidance and submit to the disposal of Providence.”

I’ve been meditating on this idea, this idea of controlling our own future. You see, I’m rather a control nut (my family is shaking their collective heads right now) and I know this is something that the Lord is working on in my life. The other night, as I lay thinking, I realized that the only thing I can control in life is my response to what happens. I can try to control the events of the future, but, in fact, cannot because I cannot predict the future. I have absolutely no idea what will happen including whether or not I will even be here to see that future.

The Lord Jesus told us that “even the hairs of your head are all counted” (Luke 12:7 NRSV). I know that I cannot count the hairs on my head! And if I cannot do that simple task, then certainly I cannot control or even predict the future. I might be able to make an educated guess and, on certain days, that guess might be right. But the fact is, I have no idea what is going to happen in the next minute or two. James teaches:

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil” (James 4:13-16 NRSV).

However, we are not beings without control. If we were, the Bible wouldn’t be full of commandments, things we are told we must do. What we can control is how we react to the circumstances that come our way. We can choose to walk the way of the Spirit, to understand that God’s plan for us isn’t to change our circumstances, but rather to mold our character.

“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. . . . the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:16, 22-24 NRSV).

In other words, while I may not be able to control what happens to me today, what I can control is how I meet those circumstances. If I gratify the desires of my flesh, I will lash out in self-indulgence, self-control, self-preservation, perhaps even anger and malice. However, if I deny myself, I will react with peace, patience, gentleness, and self-control. That I can control. The Lord Himself knows what is going to happen to me today. He has given me His Word as a way to walk through whatever He sends my way. It’s up to me to choose His way.

© 2009 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Proverbs 20:22

“Do not say, ‘I will repay evil’; wait for the Lord, and He will help you.” (NRSV)

Have you ever been misunderstood? Of course. We all have. We have done something or said something and our intentions just didn’t communicate well. Beyond that, have you ever made a mistake, one that ended up costing or hurting someone else? Again, of course! We all have made those mistakes, the actions or choices we regret and wish that we could have changed.

Unfortunately, we often act without enough information, without wisdom, without simply waiting to see what the future might hold. And those actions affect people around us. There are things that I’ve done throughout my life that, while forgiven, still gnaw at me like a sore. They are actions that hurt other people, often people I love and respect. And it would be wonderful if life were like a video game and we could “redo” what has been done. But we can’t. We have to live with the knowledge that something we did or said hurt someone else and that hurt can’t be mitigated.

Two years ago a very close (and elder) friend made a decision that placed me in a position of extreme jeopardy with the court system. For several months, I thought that I might end up being sued for something that wasn’t my fault. To be honest, I was hurt and confused as to why this person would do what he did. I wrote several times with no response. His hearing is such that he doesn’t understand phone conversations and he lived too far away for me to go face to face. So I lived in my hurt and confusion without resolution. Until this Christmas. I learned, through another friend, that this man has gone through a severe dementia and is just now coming out of it, that the decision he made was in desperation. Knowing him as I do, I know that he would be devastated if he knew the pain he had caused me. Hurt caused by a decision but certainly not hurt planned.

The Lord commands us to wait for His help, His vindication. Early on, in Leviticus, the Lord began establishing the idea of forgiveness and love replacing vengeance: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” (19:18 NRSV). In fact, Paul tells us that when we seek vengeance, rather than trusting the Lord, we are walking in sin:

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:19-21 NRSV).

I’m convinced that one of the reasons that we are not to seek vengeance is because we have only part of the picture. While we think we can, we often cannot see the whole, all of the circumstances which compelled that person to harm us. We also fail to trust the Lord to work things out for our good (Romans 8:28). As someone whose brought harm to others (whether intentionally or not), I am grateful for the Lord’s covering which protects me even from myself. His mercy toward us is never ending. Our mercy toward others should be the same.

© 2009 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Proverbs 20:10

“Even children make themselves known by their acts, by whether what they do is pure and right.” NRSV

Known by their acts. We are not who we say we are; we are who we show we are. The Lord Jesus taught that “either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit” (Matthew 12:33 NRSV).

The idea of fruit is used in scripture to depict behavior that comes from the spirit. (Did you know that all behavior comes from a spirit?) And what’s interesting is that Galatians 5 begins the discussion about behavior with this verse:

“For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.” (Galatians 5:13 NRSV).

The entire concept of slavery–becoming a slave to another–is rather strange to us. We don’t have slaves in our society. We have employees (and sometimes it feels like working is a kind of slavery), but the fact is that we have the freedom to quit and go find another job. We have the freedom to leave at the end of our shift and go about whatever we choose. Slaves do not. Slaves are subject to the whims and desires of their master 24/7. There are no days off, no vacations, no time away from the demands of being a slave. They aren’t guaranteed time to eat or sleep or recreate. They cannot choose what to wear or who to marry and often are denied raising their own children. And yet it is this exact term that Paul uses when he talks about how we are to relate to each other. And if we are to be the kind of believers that we should be, then we will be known by these kinds of acts.

What’s interesting is that we often use one “obligation” to negate another. In other words, we might say, “Oh, I cannot help that person because I’m busy with my family” or “I cannot give sacrificially because then my kids won’t get birthday presents” or “I need to go to work and can’t stop to assist right now.” And yet, Paul told us that we are to love each other in such a way that we become slaves to one another. In other words, that other person’s goals, needs, desires become the priority and ours become . . . nothing.

How many of us deny even someone within our own family in order to fulfill our own needs? Unfortunately, the Church has become replete with the teaching that we must first meet our own needs before we can meet the needs of others, that we must look to ourselves first and then–with what’s left–we can reach out to those around us. That teaching is based in secular psychology, not in the doctrine of the Bible, and is leading us astray.

Rather than be like all those around us, worrying about our own needs, this is the time for the Church to step up to the plate and begin meeting the needs of those around us, even doing that sacrificially, at a cost to ourselves and to our families. We make ourselves known by what we do. If we do the righteous thing–loving those around us as Christ loved them and poured out His life for them–then we will be known as His, as Christians.

© 2009 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.