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The Preacher
and the Hooker
Chapter XXIII
Should We Bury Our Wrongs Or Admit Them?
Bible Reading: Galatians 6:7-10, 5:25-26, 6:1-5, 5:19-24.
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. states that,
We need to admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Many of us fool or con ourselves into believing that we can
just sweep our wrongs under the carpet, or just bury them without confessing or admitting them to anyone. Over
years I have found that what I thought was buried sprouted in another place like crab grass. Crab grass
just keeps sprouting with new roots like a snake or vine. The only way to eradicate crab grass is to find
the roots, pull them up and burn them. You have to totally kill the roots in order to kill the crab grass
that will choke out the good seed. I thought I had buried my bad seed years ago. When
problems hit the bad seed grow again. I needed help. What I thought I had buried were
seed that grow and bear more fruit. Now I am facing the fact that I have to deal with a field full of consequences.
Actually, I’m dealing not only with several consequences from my most recent episode. The
field, full of bad seed, I confessed to so that I could get and receive help from others.
Galatians 6:7-10, Don’t be misled. Remember
that you can’t ignore God and get away with it: a man will always reap just the kind of crop he sows! If
he sows to please his own wrong desires, he will be planting seeds of evil and he will surely reap a harvest of spiritual
decay and death; but if he plants the good things of the Spirit, he will reap the everlasting life that the Holy Spirit gives
him.
The seeds that I planted
are now hurting and destroying others. I was addicted. [This is not an excuss for I choose to follow my
addiction.]
Galatians 5:25-26,
If we are living now by the Holy Spirit’s power, let us follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in every part
of our lives. Then we won’t need to look for honors (smiles) and popularity, which lead to jealousy
and hard feelings.
Although I was saved, and filled with the Holy Spirit, I was not following the Holy Spirit’s leading in every
part of my life. I needed and was addicted to receiving honors (smiles) and popularity. I
had a need to be accepted and loved. I had a need to receive approval because my own self image was so
poor. My false face covered the hurts. My false face covered the loneliness, not just
to others but to myself. I didn’t wear a false face to cover my sin, I had buried that.
My false face covered the emptiness that was inside. My desire was to be popular thinking that popularity
would fill my need to just be liked. It is very hard to make someone like you, but then there are people
just like me that are looking to be liked and accepted. These people are very easy to please, and very
vulnerable.
As I turn my life
over to the Holy Spirit’s power He makes me fully and totally pleasing to God. He does it, it is
not me. I no longer have to impress or earn smiles. To God I am totally pleasing.
The more I serve Him because I love Him and allow His spirit to become a part of my life, God’s desires become
my own desires. Considering where I was, the submitting to God’s will was the only intelligent choice
I could make.
The biggest problem
I have now is the stigma of the things I have done. For the first time in my life I no longer am wearing
a false face, for the first time in my life I am standing totally clean before my Lord. I have confessed
all, and yet there are some in the church who are very cold to me. There are some who can not understand
how I can have so much joy. My joy is not from thinking about those I have hurt, for this I have sorrow
all the time. Sorrow to tears often. When I get this sorrow I do not pray that it is
removed, I pray for the ones who I caused the sorrow to.
Paul tell us in Galatians 6:1-5, Dear brothers, if a Christian is overcome by some
sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help him back into the right path, remembering that next time it might be
one of you who is in the wrong. Share each other’s troubles and problems, and so obey our Lord’s
command. If anyone thinks he is too great to stoop to this, he is fooling himself. He
is really a nobody.
Let everyone
be sure that he is doing his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work well done and won’t
need to compare himself with someone else. Each of us must bear some faults and burdens of his own.
For none of us is perfect!
My
mother told me something when I was young that I will never forget. Do not gossip and talk about
other people for you never know what you may have to go through with your own children. Their life isn’t
over yet. I have never forgotten that bit of information and I have never gossiped in my life.
Paul tells us to gently and humbly
help someone who has been overcome with sin. I came asking for help and yet there are some who run and tell others to run
from me. I am not running from God or man, I am running to God and man for help. Many
who have helped the most are those who are also looking for help. Those who are also in recovery.
Sadly there are very few Christians who want to be bothered. I am not one of them. I
want to tell the world just what God has done for me and how his unconditional love is what has empowered me to change.
I have been chafing at the bit for the opportunity to share my testimony about the potters wheel song.
God made an opportunity and I shared how God had put me back on the potters wheel and how he has changed my life.
Many were blessed and touched to tears. I know this because people came to me and told me.
Within days, I got word back of great concern
from several people through three different sources. I politely backed away from the places where I was
being ministered to and where I was getting a great deal of support. I have moved back to the balcony (where
I have not moved from anyway) and continue enjoying the sermons. Although it hurts to have to leave the
choir, I do not want to be cause of grief. Yes I do need to prove myself to man but it is a great comfort
to know that God knows my heart.
Galatians
6:9-10, And let us not get tired of doing what is right, for after a while we will reap a harvest of blessing
if we don’t get discourage and give up. That’s why whenever we can we should always be kind
to everyone, and especially to our Christian brothers.
As the song I quoted earlier in this book, Ain’t givin’ up now, no, no,
no, no, no. Seeds take time to grow. Although our healing may be like a lily growing
quickly and beautiful the seeds that we plant, that others see, may take a while. Do not give up.
Their attitudes may change and if they do not it is still not our problem. I have been accepted
by the one who matters, and that is Jesus Christ.
If you are attending a recovery program, please stay plugged in. The help you receive by sharing,
will help you grow. I have found that when you are in a group of others who are also recovering you can
be totally honest without having to worry about the stigma of your past. As I shared with others of my
hurt over Christians who are being very cold, I found that others have been through the same thing. These
guys pray for me and have told me that they love me. All of us help each other. I tried
to sweep my problem under the rug for years. Sadly many churches want to do the same thing.
Then people wonder why their churches are not growing. There is a need. People
want to be delivered from their hurts. If your church will reach out in love and not with fear and condemnation,
God will use you and your church.
Paul
ties together in one package the vilest sin and those who may be playing church by including, those with the feeling
that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group. He lists acceptable sins along
with our view of you’re going to hell for that one sins. Hatred,
fighting, jealousy, anger, I’m after what’s best for me, complaints, and criticisms are listed in the middle of
the worst of the worst in our own eyes.
Galatians 5:19-21, But when you follow your own wrong inclinations,
your life will produce these evil results: impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, spiritism (that is,
encouraging the activity of demons), hatred and fighting, jealousy and anger, constant effort, to get the best for yourself,
complaints and criticisms, the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group- and there will be
wrong doctrine, envy, murder, drunkenness, wild parties, and all that sort of thing. Let me tell you again,
as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God.
I am crying to God for help, God is giving it. I
am crying to the church for help and fellowship. I am confessing my faults. I have asked
for prayer. I thank God that there are some who have reached out to me. Those who run
and try to disrupt need prayer just as I do. We are all in the same boat and it is sinking.
As I stated earlier in this book, I grow by helping others. Others grow as they reach out in fellowship
to help me grow. The church is a body of people who has fallen (a fallen champion). I
need to have fellowship with those who at this time are stronger. Please don’t abandon me, and then
go and tell others to abandon me by running from me.
Galatians 5:22-23, But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives
he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control;
and here there is not conflict with Jewish laws.
Those who belong to Christ have nailed their evil desires to his cross and crucified them there.
As I have already written in order to live we must die. We
must ask to be crushed. Only then can we be remade into what is pleasing to Him. When
I am made in Christ’s image by the Holy Spirit’s leading I am also acceptable to myself, which I have never been
until now. The seeds I am planting now are pleasing to God, myself and others. The crop
now will be an abundance of joy and peace in my life. As the Holy Spirit begins to bring forth fruit in
our lives, our dependencies lose their power. With the joy and peace that we have because of hope in Christ
where there was no hope we can start to overcome the pain of our broken past. With the Holy Spirit working
in us love, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness we can start to restore our relationship and try to make amends.
But remember we will need patience to persevere and not quit through the difficult times. And with
the self control the Spirit helps us with we can stand against our tendency toward relapse. With prayer,
searching and dying to self by asking to be crushed, God’s spirit will supply everything that we need for a fantastic
testimony to the world of a successful recovery.
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