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One of my former clients gave me permission to use his story regarding healthy self examination. He entitles it "a white robe over nasty underwear."
The Lord had seemingly given "Pete" (not his real name) the gift of prophecy. He would sense that God would be telling him to go to Fort Walton Beach, Florida (a trip of about 5 hours from Birmingham). He was to go to a certain pier where he would meet a man with a red baseball cap. Pete was to minister to him.
Sure enough, after the long drive, Pete would pull up to the pier and there stood a man in a red baseball cap. A conversation was initiated and it was obvious that God had sent Pete to encourage, comfort and instruct the man.
This kind of experience happened frequently.
However, as Pete so graphically described, "I had concentrated on my spiritual gift and had a blind eye to my character." He was in my office because he had just taken a large hunting knife and out of a fit of rage, destroyed $3000 worth of furniture and threatened to kill his wife.
Rather than allowing his gaze at God to penetrate through his fig leaves, and reveal garbage within, Pete kept busy with religious activity ... a white robe over nasty underwear. Hurts, hates, guilt, selfishness, insecurity and other "nasties" lay submerged for years and finally exploded through the destructive blade of the butcher knife. A religious mask to keep from healthy self examination.
Rationalize, attack, rearrange and religious masks all utilized to prevent facing oneself. Do any of these apply to you? It’s often more comfortable living in darkness but, is the payoff worth it?
A challenge we all have: we can sweep the streets and make them look clean. But until we climb down into the sewer and clean out the filth beneath the streets, we're obscuring God's production of his qualities and fruit in our lives.
Tomorow's post describes a strong church lady with vulgar thoughts toward God.
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