Out and About 8 His Assurance

[HKHaugan]

In going out and about we will run into all kinds of people, situations and problems for which there seems to be no direct entry, understanding or solution.  There needs to be a doorway, a gate, some kind of access point.  This is where the work of the Holy Spirit really gets us connected.  He is the penetrating oil that soaks the rusty hinges of sin that have jammed shut the doors of our spiritual sensitivity. 

 

Before we can really get into where we are called when circumstance presents itself we have to face a truly important self-realization.  It has to do with the heart.  As Paul tells us in Romans 7, the good we want to do we can’t and there’s a why that is the reason.  That ‘why’ is in the heart.  We can really identify with Jeremiah when he tells us the heart is deceitful above all things (17:9).  Before we accepted Jesus self-deceit was the scavenger that wreaked havoc in the heart.  “If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (1Jn.1:8).” 

 

Deceit manifests itself in so many subtle ways.  The moment we perceive being ‘put on the spot’ the defensive walls go up and we grasp for responses that will look or sound good.  Whatever we come up with we will throw up an immediate screen of self-justification and rationalization for the word or the deed that was our response. 

 

Then also is that tendency we have to see ourselves as exceptions to the rule.  There are always those times we find ourselves being tempted by one thing or another that is not in line with God’s Word but if we just step out and do it with good intention that makes it right. 

 

And of course, shifting blame is a technique that takes the heat off of us, we think.  It wasn’t my fault.  If only I had been brought up in a better neighborhood, had been given a chance, not been done in by those I thought were friends or why try since everything seems so hopeless anyway.  It’s hard to take responsibility, to admit being wrong, to accept realistic limitations and self-honesty.

 

But the bottom-line problem is this---not being able to deal with God on His terms, His evaluation of who, what and where I am.  Herein lies the issue of being aware that my frustration, my aloneness, my anxieties, my hidden and open desires, my sense of being unfulfilled are spiritual symptoms of being separated from God.  It’s all about facing that separation and accepting it for what it really is---sin.  I am a blatant by-nature-defined-sinner whose main drive is pride---the arrogant exaltation of me, the fear-laced protection of me and the justification of me.

 

In Jesus we find that the door of our heart can be pried open as the power sin has over us is neutralized through Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit.  Relying on that relationship day by day in prayer, opening the Word, being in relationship with other believers and sharing those binding moments, His light breaks through the darkness we so diligently and deceitfully try to hide within.  The fear of not looking right, feeling right, being right, nags at us out of that darkness.   However His light is the antidote, the cure, and His Word filled with the Spirit surges with energy in the moment of our need.

 

It’s when we are out and about going through the routine of economic and social survival that the spiritual forces within and without kick in.  The momentary unexpected circumstances demanding our attention become a minefield of temptation to take control, be in control and stay in control.  We all know the feeling of being in a new group of people or what it’s like to be confronted by a situation we have never encountered before.  There is that moment of frozen ‘what-do-I-do-now?’ 

 

It’s that moment of paralysis when you are the center of the world’s view, everyone looking at you, everyone expecting you to do or say something significant.  These are the real moments of being out and about.  They are the moments for which we need to be spiritually prepared.  It’s always a temptation to play a role, be somebody we are not, pretend a new persona or take on the ‘one-upsmanship’ posture when that really isn’t us at all.  Jesus is always there in the Spirit to prompt us, to get us to think of His responses, His reactions, when He was put on the spot. 

 

Remember, when you are out and about, His assuring words, “I am with you always to the very end of the age (Mt.28:20).”