Exterior Issues

     I like to think well of myself. I suppose we all do; like to think well of ourselves. I periodically engage in self-congratulatory reverie when I contemplate the seemingly endless parade of jerks and bigots, streaming across Facebook or some other social media, thinking, “Wow! I’m better than that.”

     And in some earthly, carnal, way I may be…sort of. I clean up well. I keep my lawn mown, yard picked up and even have a few nice flowers scattered about bringing color to the place. I don’t beat my wife, pay my taxes, treat my children relatively well, and visit my parents periodically. I even go to worship on Sundays, participating on occasion in “other duties as assigned.” You know, the outreach activities we in modern Christianity so enjoy. I’m a nice guy.

     You see I like the earthly standard. No fuss, no muss, no real sacrifice, and when they lower your box into the ground to slow salutes those left will say nice things about you as they walk back to their cars, scuffing the dust from their hands. But God refuses to leave me alone in this matter; as well as others. Sometimes God’s like that annoying crack in your fingernail. You know the kind; it catches on your clothes reminding you of the imperfection. At first you safely ignore it. But after a while, the defect grows and if ignored further, it will catch and hang, ripping out an unsightly chunk which may bleed embarrassingly. Unrelentingly honest Jesus reminds us of this in Matthew 5:20, “²⁰For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” This is not the only place He employs a sledgehammer on my pride, my self-image. In Matthew 18 He tells us to forgive seventy-seven times! He then goes on to tell the parable of the unforgiving servant. In Luke’s account, the apostles cry out, “Increase our faith!”

     Recently I’ve had opportunity to show forgiveness, significant forgiveness, not the little some stranger cuts me off on the freeway forgiveness, but the someone stabbed me in the back or abused my love forgiveness. These are not unusual circumstances. They do not merit fulsome description since everyone deals with this. But in both of these cases, I failed, unwilling to extend forgiveness I did not approach Jesus’ standard. Like Darius, I was placed in the scales and found wanting.

      All of which brings me to my point, how do we deal with our own personal failures. I do not mean those smaller insignificant lapses. I speak of deep, dark moral collapse; revealing inner faults and character flaws. We tend to focus on the outward signs, engaging in a wide variety of strategies to keep them under control. We want to look good. We emphasize exterior appearance at the expense of interior realities. Like the Pharisees of old we carefully cleanse the exterior of the cup, all the while, ignoring the rotten filth within (Luke 11:38-40). While we may speak the language of grace, we live lives of desperate legalism with all its attendant bitterness. No matter how hard we try, occasionally our own moral failure surfaces and we must face our true depraved nature. So how do we deal with this unfortunate truth? We can reach for the social makeup, apply enough base to hide the blemish and hope for the best. Sooner or later though, like the aging Hollywood star, all our efforts unravel and the truth spills out and we find our failure exposed for all to see. Or, perhaps, like David, we prostrate ourselves, seeking God’s forgiveness.

     Paul talks about this in II Corinthians 7:10. He speaks of Godly grief, comparing it to worldly grief. Worldly grief stems from embarrassment at being caught out. As a teacher I see this almost every day. Most of the time students are sad about being caught in some minor infraction, not seeing their mistake as something especially egregious. And for the most part they are correct. In some cases; however, the mistake reveals a deeper failing, a lack of forgiveness in my case.

     When I understand that my failing indicates how far away from God I am, then I approach Godly grief. In reality, I truly offend God by my lack of forgiveness. He is the one hurt by my intransigence, my selfishness, and callous treatment of others. My sins wound Jesus and when I understand that, I begin to repent, finding grace, freedom, and joy. True repentance admits the great chasm which lies between the Lord and me. True repentance understands my inability to fix this problem. True repentance understands that all the “good” things I do are merely, as Isiah says, “filthy rags” (Isiah 64:6). When I understand my inability to “be good,” I can relax and stop worrying about how I look and focus on loving God and those He places in my path. Then I understand that my exterior will sort itself out as His hands shape my life. Focusing on exterior issues leaves me exhausted and weak. It sucks the joy from my life, leaving me an anemic, dried out shadow of what God intends. This does not mean that exteriors are unimportant, just not very. When God rules my interior, His presence changes my exterior into His image.