Malachi: Book of Self-Deception

We've been chatting about deceiving ourselves (see previous posts) and concurrently I've been studying Malachi. Guess what? The Book of Malachi is all about self-deception. It's all about the prophet Malachi giving God's perspective of the Israelites's blind spots. Through a series of cataloging the Israelites' questions, God tries to bring them back to sanity and a heart for Him. In reading those questions, I came up with several ways that we can be unaware of our blind spots. As a result, we might be able to identify where we're missing hearing God or responding to Him. Let's take a look.

Here are the questions that the Israelites give to God:
1:2: “How have You loved us?”
1:6: ‘How have we despised Your name?’
1:7: ‘How have we defiled You?’
2:14: ‘For what reason?’
2:17: “How have we wearied Him?”
3:7: ‘How shall we return?’
3:8: ‘How have we robbed You?’
3:13 ‘What have we spoken against You?’

I hope you'll read through Malachi to get the total package, but I think we can get a sense of the attitudes of self-deception from their questions.

Do you hear:

• the questioning?
• the demanding for God to show proof?
• the arguing?
• the talking back?
• the nit-picking?
• the denial?
• the compartmentalizing?
• the lack of listening?

I'm chagrined to recognize my own voice and tone in those questions. When I don't want to obey or see it God's way, I can come up with all sorts of arguments. Have mercy, Lord!

What gives me hope in this book about rebels is God's patience and His faithfulness to answer every question and to try to reveal Himself to the Israelites. He offers them hope of relationship if they will turn from their stubborn ways. Yes, He does say He'll curse them (2:2) because "you are not taking it to heart" but He also says He will bless them abundantly by opening "the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows" (3:10) if they will turn to Him in obedience.

To know God's patient heart and faithful wooing is so encouraging.

"Lord, reveal to me my own stubborn arguments and demands. Thank you that you patiently call to me out of your love and grace. There is hope. Thank you!"

Grateful Beggars

Out and about on errands, I suddenly craved a diet soda. I spied a hamburger fast-food restaurant and headed for it--when I also spied a homeless man sitting on a block wall holding a hand-printed sign. I couldn't read the sign but immediately felt the familiar guilt of thinking I should help him but how could I know how the money would be used? I've struggled for a long time with what to do in these kinds of situations and I know different people have different perspectives. I usually try to seek the Lord's direction but as a default, rarely do anything.

But as I pulled into the drive-through line, I felt like I should buy the guy a hamburger and soda. And I got excited about it but fear mingled in too. Wonder if I pull up to him and he jumps into my car and pulls a knife and has me drive to San Francisco.... Well, my fears are good at jumping to wide-ranging conclusions.

Regardless, I was gonna do it.

I received the hamburger and two drinks at the pick-up window and drove over to him. As I pulled up beside him, he smiled and jumped up from sitting on the wall. I extended the bag to him along with the drink. He looked at me through the window and asked, "Is it a hamburger or a chicken sandwich? And if it's not a diet soda, I really can't have the sugar from a regular drink."

I was speechless. I tried to answer that it was a hamburger but the words caught in my throat. He started mumbling as he looked inside the bag, "Someone brought me a hamburger already this morning. I'm sorta tired of them. I sure hope this is a chicken sandwich. I haven't had one of those for awhile."

NOT! OK, it didn't really happen that way. But as I drove away from the man who expressed his appreciation over and over again, my imagination took over and I wondered what it would have been like if that had happened.

And then I thought about how each of us is a beggar before God, deserving nothing from His hand yet in His mercy, grace, and generosity, He gives us the banquet of His presence and a feast of His love. But we sometimes react like my imaginary ungrateful homeless man. "Well, Lord, why did you give me that trial and not the easy one that my friend has? And you should know that I really can't handle rejection right now. I'm tired of what's going on in my life. I deserve a trouble-free life."

It seems sorta silly for a beggar to be picky when it comes to hamburgers and chicken sandwiches. But maybe we're doing the same thing when we are ungrateful for God's choice of how He works in our lives. We really don't deserve anything good at all. "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Everything, even an opportunity to be challenged in order to grow closer to God, is His gift.

Let's be grateful beggars.

Who Me? Deceived?

Almost seven weeks with our four-year-old grandson, Raphael, was so great. One of the incidents that stand out is Raffi's penchant for picking at scabs. This child is obsessed with scabs. He was even picking at some on my fingers. You'd think it would hurt for him to pick at his own but he loves to pick at those little owies on his face especially. During our trip, he had a little owie on his chin and just couldn't resist it.

His mom told him, "Stop picking at that!"

Raffi replied, "I'm not picking at it, I'm just patting it."

Oh, did we laugh. How easily we can try to defend or justify our behavior. We call wrong behavior other words that don't sound so bad. Instead of saying, "I'm angry," we say, "I'm just a little irritated." We can so easily deceive ourselves.

One of the books I read on our trip was I Told Me So: Self-Deception and the Christian Life by Gregg A. Ten Elshof (Wm. B. Eerdsman Publishing Co. 2009). Although Mr. Ten Elshof's book was enlightening and convicting, it was also encouraging. It has motivated me to consider how I could be deceiving myself and I've been asking the Lord to open my eyes and understanding to those ways.

One way is through a principle Larry and I call "railroad tracks" in our counseling. We are operating side by side with two opposing beliefs--the rails are side by side. For instance, we might say we trust God, yet we are worried about something. We deceive ourselves into thinking they both can operate at the same time but they are the opposite.

We can say we love someone but we aren't making choices for their best.
We can say we have the power of the Lord but we avoid taking risks.
We can say we just don't have enough time to do what we want to do, but we're frittering our time away on meaningless tasks.

I've always remembered the comment of a friend who claimed she didn't have time to read the Bible. Then one day she said to me with an amazed look on her face, "But I sure find the time to read my decorating magazines." She hadn't realized until that moment that she was self-deceived.

Of course, I'm not advocating perfection but we aren't going to grow in the Lord unless we face those inconsistencies.

Mr. Ten Elshof calls this "attention management." He writes, "Attention management, then, has two sides. On the one hand, we manage to deceive ourselves by systematically avoiding attention to evidence against those beliefs upon which our felt well-being depends. On the other hand, we direct inordinate critical attention to evidence that opposes our cherished belief if that evidence can't be avoided or if we think we'll have to answer for it in public. We give it our attention, it seems, not so much to learn from it as to creatively discount it. Either way, through careful management of attention, we enable ourselves to be deceived over the long haul." (pg. 39).

That is what was happening to my friend who thought she didn't have time to read the Bible. She initially avoided attention upon the time it took to read her decorating magazines and focused attention on her cherished belief that she didn't have time to read the Bible. There were "railroad tracks" in her mind.

How can we stop deceiving ourselves? Obviously, it's takes the Spirit of God speaking to our hearts. We must pay attention to the benefits that come from obedience and abiding in the Lord. Unfortunately, being blinded to our own wrong beliefs can be very hard to identify, so I think it really takes asking those close to us to point things out. It may be hard to hear but we need that input. I recently asked someone who knows me well if there was anything I needed to be aware of. I must admit I was relieved when she said there wasn't anything she could think of. I gave her permission to give her "constructive criticism" any time the Lord led.

What we need is a "vacation override." Since Larry and I will be ministering in Greece soon and we'll be out of the country for two months, we need to get a three month supply of our medications rather than the allowed one month. I had to call our health insurance and they said I needed a "vacation override." Their rules say I can only have one month of meds at a time but for my trip they will "override" their rules.

You and I have beliefs that may not be correct. Or we are acting as if we don't really "believe" one of our so-called "beliefs" (IE. saying we trust God but we are also worried.) We need the Spirit of God to "override" our wrong beliefs so that we can abide and operate in truth.

If you know me well enough to give me some "overriding," I welcome it. And would you be willing to ask some wise person in your life if there is something that needs "overriding" in your life? What truth that will eliminate self-deception does the Spirit want to speak to us about? Let's be open.

And stop picking at that scab! Oh, that's right. You're just patting it.

Wanna FEEL Holy?

Have you ever wondered what holiness feels like? I think I found a verse that expresses what God might like us to experience when we see the fruits of holiness that He is producing in our lives. It's Malachi 4:2. “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall." (NASB).

Have you ever "skipped" in your spirit after recognizing that your trust in God had expanded to include forgiving someone who hurt you? Or giving grace to someone who normally ignores you by listening with understanding to her share a problem? Or resting patiently in a situation that normally drives you over the edge?

Just imagine the sight of that calf skipping in freedom and not being boxed in any longer by a fence or pen. The Amplified Bible expresses that phrase this way: "and you shall go forth and gambol like calves [released] from the stall and leap for joy." Just think, we can leap for joy when we obey God and operate in His power. We're no longer fenced in and held in bondage by sinful patterns like worry, fear, selfishness, hate, resentment, and so many other binding things.

The NIV words it: "And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves." Oh, to frolic like well-fed calves! Can't you just picture it? This calf isn't emaciated but instead healthy and well-nourished. I think that gives the idea that it is assured that all it's real needs are supplied and it is free of concern for love and care. The foundation of holiness is believing and trusting in God's sovereign love that provides everything we truly need; therefore, we don't need to demand it from people who are needy themselves.

But where does all this start? The background to Malachi gives us the answer. The Israelites were in another phase of disobedience and Malachi gave God's prophecy to try to turn them back to God. After three chapters of rebuke, the final chapter, Chapter 4, predicts what will happen when they turn back. Look again at the promise of verse 2 to those who are truly worshiping God: "“But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall."

God brings healing and there's a feeling of joy about being set free. Healing brings holiness and holiness brings joy. God heals us of our wounds which have created wrong ideas about life,
God, and people. We begin to view our circumstances and the people around us as opportunities to serve God through being a servant. Less and less our attitude is, "I want to be a servant until I'm treated like one." I'm still growing in this of course, but the joy that comes when I cooperate with God is like skipping out of a pen where I'd been restrained.

Have you experienced that joy? I hope so. We obey not in order to have that feeling but how generous of God to give us the reward to encourage us.

Are you like a calf encircled by some pen? Could it be bitterness, a critical spirit, a sense of entitlement, people pleasing, or self-absorption? Do you want to break free? You can in God's power through repentance and surrender. Get ready to leap and frolic. The gate is opening.