Culturally Irrelevant

I tried to get a picture of them for you, but for some reason I couldn’t get my phone to send the file to my email address. And boy did they reek! I stuck my head in the pantry tonight to get a plastic Walmart bag and caught a faint whiff of something foul. I made a thorough search of the pantry floor, smelling everything from the bread machine to the griddle. No dice. But I wasn’t about to give up when I knew something that gross was in close proximity to my food!

The bottom shelf was next. As soon as I started pulling stuff off, I saw it. A very juicy, very dark bag of what used to be potatoes. Actually a few of them were mostly dry, but one was completely disgusting. No need to keep looking. Honestly, my very first thought at that moment, as weird as it sounds, was “Thank you God for my sense of smell.” There’s no way I’d have seen them there behind everything, let alone searched for them, if I hadn’t smelled them first. And that’s when it hit me.

The gift of discerning spirits is like the church’s nose. It is sensitive and detects things by the Spirit that other parts of the body just don’t register. I have a friend who regularly operates in this gift. Some people are just nosy, critical or insightful, but the Lord works through this guy regularly with the real deal. And he does it in love through prayer. When I’m confused about something in my life, I know I can call this guy and he nails it before I get more than a handful of words out.

A couple points to be made here. One, just like I needed my nose to find those rotten potatoes, we need the gifts in each other. It’s supposed to be that way. It keeps us humble, dependent upon others and God, and connected to Jesus’ body. Two, God cares deeply about what’s hidden in the secret places of our lives. Whether it’s the stuff we suppress from fear or shame, or those things that we cannot see because of our own self-deception, pain or ignorance, He cares about it. And He cares because it’s hurting us, wounding others and ultimately crippling His body. He wants us to be free, to have the rotten potatoes identified and removed. My pantry has good food in it, but I don’t want anything out of there if it smells like sewer.

Praise God for discerning believers who operate in grace, humility and boldness. It’s good for us to confess our sins to each other often, to have dark corners exposed quickly, before they become infested. I’m so thankful for the times my good friends and my wife have lovingly punked me to my face instead of tolerating my peace treaties with sin.

Lord, reveal the things hidden in secret, and start with my heart.