I have a weight I need to get off my shoulders

Posted on Feb 20, 2016 in Faith Focus |

I have a weight I need to get off my shoulders

 

I have been deliberating all week about whether or not I should send this e-mail. You see, what I will write about below is not flattering to me and I don’t think anyone likes to put any of their dirty laundry out for all to consider.
This I find is especially true as I am an Elder in our church and have therefore been called to be a spiritual leader and what I describe below is not one of my finest moments. Granted, you may not consider that what I describe is any big deal, but it still represents and ugly side of me that can surface on occasion so it is with reluctance and a sense of vulnerability that I share it.
So, many of you know I am very devoted to physical fitness (Can you say fanatical?). Rarely do I allow anything to get in the way of a workout and on occasions I have gone to great lengths to have that be true. Well, during this past week I went to the weight room at work and as usual found myself alone. What I also found, which is also usual, was weights, papers, water bottles and paper towels which had been used by other people scattered all across the weight room. As much as people leaving all the weights they used all around usually bothers me, on this day it really bothered me because someone had left two one-hundred pound dumbbells on a weight bench that everyone uses. Additionally, they left two seventy-five pound dumbbells on the ground right near the bench, so that people would have to move them in order to use or reposition the bench. As I surveyed the disarray the room was in (much worse than usual) I saw red. This has been a long standing issue with employees sparring back and forth with words written on message boards about how people needed to put the weights away that they used and to clean up after themselves. Such messages have been of the sort as “If you are strong enough to lift the weights you are strong enough to put them away when you are done” and others that were much less pleasant. For some reason this behavior of leaving all the weights a person used out really gets under my skin and I did not respond well. I ended up taking the dumbbells I mentioned and carrying them to a weight-sled that is used for leg presses and placing the weights

under

 the sled. This means that anyone who wanted to use those weights was going to have to get down on their hands and knees and lift those 100 and 75 pound dumbbells out. After I did it I had some strong reactions which in the moment felt kind of good. They were:

 

1)     That will teach them to not put their weights away.

2)     God is a God of justice and this is just!

3)     I bet this fixes the problem!

4)     Enough is enough and someone had to do something.

And now what do I think?

1)     I did not teach anyone anything other than to be more spiteful, insensitive, and angry. I also inconvenienced anyone who wanted to use those weights who

does

 use them responsibly and so I have now committed the very inconsiderate act that got me so frustrated (and in my view what I did was even worse).

2)     Shame on me for considering my act in any way a representation of how God administers justice.

3)     I fixed nothing and I certainly fixed nothing in me. I just stoked the fire of my own sinfulness.

4)     Yes, someone had to do something, and that someone wasn’t me and this was certainly not what “had to be done”

So what am sharing all this with you? First, my poor behavior should remind us all that we all do ugly things and we are called to confess our sin. I have brought this sin before The Lord and now you. I have asked God for His forgiveness because of my mean, selfish, and prideful response. Second, I have shared this because I wanted to share further about the nature of my / our humanity. You may have not done something exactly like what I did but I imagine that you have done things out of selfishness and pride that were mean and all of us have periods that are not our finest moments. I remember after I moved the weights I felt this surge of righteousness. It is amazing how sin can feel so good and that we can wallow in it and even desire to stay in it. I knew that what I was doing was wrong but in that moment I did not care. It was not long before the Holy Spirit convicted me and He continues to do so.

I ask for your forgiveness. Not because I wounded you directly or because I am an Elder per se, but because we are called to be Holy and build up one another in the faith and my actions and attitudes have not served me or you well. They have impacted me for the worse and this is not the type of spirit that I want to bring into my fellowship with you and therefore I continue to ask The Lord to change my heart because whether it is weights or whatever, selfishness and pride and the potential for mean behavior are still are in me and everyone around me deserves better.

In some ways there is a risk in sending out such an e-mail and I won’t detail why. I had become convinced on two occasions this week to not send this e-mail but I felt it was important to do so. I think we as believers need to be more open about our sin and frailty. I don’t like “holy-huddles” and I bet you don’t either. Years ago a Christian band called DC-talk put out a song that contained these words, “What’s going on inside of me? I despise my own behavior. This only serves to confirm my suspicions that I’m still a man in need of a Savior.”, and indeed I am. Not for salvation purposes because He has already sealed me for His glory, but from my own “body of death” and “wretchedness”.

I hope that an e-mail like this opens us up to sharing more about our sins in the right time and context because in so doing we can seek and rejoice in God’s mercy and grace together.

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”

– James 5:16

 

For His Glory,

Rob

Feb 20, 2016

Leave a Reply