“Again Jesus called the crowd to Him and said, ‘Listen to Me, everyone, and understand this.  Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him.  Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.'”  Mark 7:14-16

I sat there looking at those words.  Responsibility for our choices lies within each of us.  There will always be things that happen to each of us that hurt, that scare, that anger, that which generates passion and excitement in us.  Events, people, moments and relationships that invoke in us a wide range of emotions:  love, hate, fear, hope, joy, sadness, anger and happiness.

What goes on around us definitely effects us; it is how we are designed.  And while what we are subjected to may indeed generate feelings, how we choose to respond comes out of us from who we are and not from what is happening to us.  It is there, in the choices of how to respond, that we can become “unclean” in His eyes.

Jesus doesn’t stop there with telling us that it is our heart state that is responsible for our spiritual and emotional condition and responses.  He goes deeper, and shares more.

A list.

In case we can’t figure it out, He lists it out for us.  He lays out a list that takes us back to the root of our responses as well as our emotions.

Evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.

Yep, that’s the list.  Part of me really didn’t want to go deeper when I hit it.  I knew the basic definition of most of them.  Yet, I learned long ago that God calls us to seek Him and one of the ways is in going deeper in knowledge and understanding.  For me, that often means spending some time in the dictionary trying to discern the full meaning of a word.

So, let me share what I have learned (by the way, all of these definitions come out of Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language, reprinted from the 1828 version):

Evil Thoughts:

Well, I couldn’t find that specific of a definition so I decided to look up the word “evil”.  In verse 23 of Mark, Jesus says “all these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.'”

“Evil is natural or moral.”

“Natural evil is anything which produces pain, distress, loss or calamity, or which in any way disturbs the peace, impairs the happiness, or destroys the perfection of natural beings.”

“Moral evil is any deviation of a moral agent from the rules of conduct prescribed to him by God, or by a legitimate human authority; or it is any violation of the plain principles of justice and rectitude….All wickedness, all crimes, all violations of law and right are moral evils….”

Further in the definition, it goes on to include injury, “not kindly, not well, not with justice, not happily.”  With all aspects of God’s Word and their meanings, I have found it best to apply them first to myself before applying them to anyone else.  In doing so, I saw that I had not acted kindly when I became so frustrated with my son the night before.  I did not act with justice in that my reaction was greater than it needed to be.  I could see the pain, distress, and injury that my tone of voice and harsh words had caused my son.  Without a doubt, I had clearly affected his happiness and sense of peace–not by correcting him, but in how I choose to treat him with that correction.

Worse yet, we are instructed in the New Testament not to exasperate our children, which was exactly what I had done and thus, violated the rules of conduct that God had given me.  Well, He has given those words to all of us…  Without even realizing it, I had engaged evil thoughts putting them into action when I opened my mouth with that angry tone and sharp words of blame.

Theft can mean a thing stolen.  It didn’t take much thought to understand that, by my choice of behavior, I had chipped away at his trust in me and the safety of our relationship.  And I had taken the peace and happiness of the night without any right.

Greed.  Now greed has two definitions:  “keenness of appetite” and “ardent desire.”  Being entirely honest, I wasn’t sure what ardent meant so I looked it up.  It means “hot, burning, that causes a burning sensation.  Having the quality or appearance of a fire.  Warm or passionate.”  Ugh, my temper is often like a flash fire rising up to burn those too close with words or frustration in my tone very easily conveyed.

Deceit.  “Literally, a catching or ensnaring.  Hence, the misleading of another; the leading of another to believe what is false…”  “In Scripture, that which is obtained by guile, fraud or oppression.”  It was here that I stopped to weigh how that definition might apply to how I handled myself.  It was then that I heard my words very clearly, “If you don’t want to hear me speak to you this way, you should have done what I told you to do when I told you to do it.”

With those words, I blamed Josh for my frustrations and my choice to blow up and speak so harshly.  My message, in that one statement, conveyed that had he handled himself better, I wouldn’t have lost my temper.  In essence, I was leading him to believe that he could control my reactions, which is false.  I am the one responsible for them.  How we respond, as Jesus tells us, comes from within us and not from outside of us.  My choice to lecture, yell or become angry is solely my choice.  His behavior has consequences for him, but so does mine and that accountability starts with the ownership that I am the one in control of myself, all of myself, including my tone, choice of words and the sound level of my voice.

In that last part of that definition involving guile and oppression, I decided to dig deeper.  Guile is to “disguise craftily”.  How many of us do this?  We craft our response to avoid blame and responsibility by disguising it as the other person’s fault?  In it we end up showing duplicity in that we are implying if they did what we wanted, all would be well, when really maybe if we behaved ourselves better, things wouldn’t become full of frustration and angst…

Oppression also held some interesting insight as it often involves the “imposition of unreasonable burdens”, “severity”, or “overburdened”.  There appears to be a careful balance in the expectations we should have with one another as the definition goes on to include words like “depression and dullness of spirit; a sense of heaviness.”  When we impose unreasonable expectations or “burdens” on our children or even other adults, are we setting the stage for weighing down their hearts with hopelessness and depression?

Lewdness.  It means licentiousness and shamelessness.  Licentiousness means “excessive indulgence, contempt of the just restraint of the law…decorum.  Unrestrained.”  Looking at my words and tone, I hadn’t cared about restraint.  I had barely been able to restrain my voice from yelling.  It was becoming clear that what I really wanted was my way–the things done that I had asked–and I was tired of being kind and patient about it.

Slander.  “False talk…tending to injure the reputation of another by lessening him in the esteem of another.”  In this I recognized that the blame game that I saw in deceit had turned to slander as I started to rant about the house never staying clean, always having to pick up after them, and the other callous words that started to roll off my tongue with little restraint.  Those words clearly contained the potential to lessen and diminish his self-esteem.

And why were they false as they seemed to carry some truth about his lack of timely response?  I had already laid out consequences for that lack of responsiveness when he stumbled over something he had forgotten to do.  At that point, I had quickly lost sight of the truth when I allowed that mistake to trigger an avalanche of my frustration.

Truth be told, when my house gets into a messy state, a large part of that falls on me and the things demanding my time at that moment.  As I sat there pondering this, I realized that I could much more peacefully assign chores and work quietly to resolve my frustrations.  I could develop a plan of action to head these frustrations off in advance instead of using words of condemnation to accomplish the goal of chores when I was tired of asking.  Again, I had chosen this negative response instead of seeking a different solution.

Arrogance.  You will love this.  “The act or quality of taking much upon one’s self.”  It also means “presumption.”  I immediately recognized that the stress and build up had begun inside of me long before I lost my temper.  In part, because I had put too much on my list to do.  I had taken much upon myself, voluntarily.  Ownership is important here.  I was the one who made the list, and worse yet, as each task got marked off, I would eagerly add on one or two more.  I hadn’t been respecting my limitations, and in my greed to keep accomplishing this long overdue list, I kept adding to it.  And instead of realizing that we could have coasted to the end of summer at the same gingerly pace that had been our peaceful existence this season, I hurriedly tried to cram in those last few things.

But let us not lose the word “presumption” in the midst of this tale, because it played a vital role in fueling my fire.  You see, I never even gave Josh a chance to explain his forgetfulness.  Nope, in all frustration, I stopped him mid-sentence presuming that his actions were a vile act of disobedience and an utter expression of disrespect.  This beautiful young man standing before me with the heart of gold I had convinced myself in the heat of the moment was purposefully disregarding his mother and his duties.  Oh, the irony of my thoughts…

Though last, it is not the least of these, as Jesus rounds out this list with Folly.  “It is a weakness of intellect; a weak or absurd act not highly criminal…any conduct contrary to the laws of God and man; sin…that which violates moral precepts and dishonors the offender.”

It is interesting that He ends the list with this definition.  How many times do we disregard looking at our sin because as absurd as it was, it doesn’t amount to something highly offensive in our minds?  Do we understand that our sin, these sins, dishonor ourselves?

Now at this point, you might be thinking: “Are you serious?”  Yes.  Yes, I am.  Sin is something not to be taken lightly, and lately, it seems like it is the one thing so easily glossed over in life.  We look to follow reasonable and justified rules that make us look better to others, and yet, we often fail to see where we fall so incredibly short in the areas that truly matter.  In this current state of time, it seems that very few want to speak of the idea that there are rights and wrongs–especially the ones that so often impact each other.  And, especially not those that we might be guilty of.

But we are not alone in the disposition to ignore the deeper application of God’s Word to our lives.  Jesus’ disciples had heard Him speak His response to the Pharisees about uncleanliness and had asked Him to explain further.  He asked them, “Are you so dull?”, before He repeated the instruction.  It was because of this dullness that He gave them this list.

We, too, tend to be a little dull.  A little slow to the idea that we are really not perfect, even when we give a superficial nod to our imperfection.  Here the Pharisees had admitted that they could be “unclean” if they didn’t wash carefully.  You know, imperfection was possible–maybe a slip up every now and again.  But Jesus exposed them for their superficial piety.  He doesn’t do this to show them up; His point is exactly why He went to the cross for us.  We are sinners in ways we can’t even see.  I am; you are.  We need Him in a desperate, blinded-kind-of-way…with deep-rooted sins that we are not even fully aware of.

And while we will never be sin-free, He calls us repeatedly to look deeper in our hearts and root out these sins.  We are encouraged time and time again to follow Him, to become more like Him, to lead lives of righteousness (note not self-righteousness), and that doesn’t come from eyes and ears closed to those problem areas that need to be changed in ourselves.

This list wasn’t meant to cause me despair.  God leading me to this moment wasn’t meant to put me in a state of self-pity and panic, though it deeply saddened me.  Nor was He asking me to pick up the mantel and play a martyr saying it was all my fault and I was all to blame.  He wanted me to see the truth about myself and my actions in the midst of the entirety of the situation.  Josh didn’t need to hear words justifying, denying or overly blaming myself.  Trust me, most can spot insincerity and avoidance of blame in all its shapes and sizes.  So can God.

No, God’s Word is truth that is meant to help root out those things inside us that entangle us in patterns of behavior that hurt and damage.  One of the definitions of discipline is to instruct and teach.  While this list was and is painful for me to look at and admit–and maybe you will catch glimpses of yourself in it–better is His instruction than stagnating in my sins.  On what started out as a glorious morning, I indeed found myself incredibly grateful for God’s timeliness and the penetrating depth of His Word in my soul; its reach coming to my very day and circumstances.  And what does it truly contain?  Hope.  Hope that with His help, I can now see what I could not see just moments before–where I was “unclean”.  Where I truly needed the flow and movement of a million little droplets of water to wash away my sin in the mercy of His light and forgiveness…

Do you know what “unclean” actually means?  It means “foul with sin; dirty; filthy.”  Looking up foul, it means “covered with or containing extraneous matter which is injurious, noxious or offensive.”  It involves being “polluted, impure”, “defiling”, “wicked”, “unfair”, “hateful”, “ugly”, “coarse”, “gross”, “full of weeds”, “not favorable or safe”.  By definition, we should want to wash ourselves clean from this state, but these aren’t things that just wash off our hands with a little bit of ceremonial water…Jesus is speaking to a deeper cleansing.

Think about it.  I know I am.  It is not this world that we have to worry about “making” us unclean.  It is all about what resides inside of us, in our hearts.  It is why His truth always changes, always makes new, always restores and rebuilds, always loves, always cleans…we’ve all got things that need to change in each of our hearts.  Trust in the light of His Word to show you what you might not notice on your own.

“My prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.  Sanctify them by the truth; Your Word is truth.”  ~John 17:15-17

“You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.”  ~Psalm 18:28

This morning I stepped outside to set down my dog’s food bowl.  As I walked toward the end of our deck, I was amazed at what I saw.  The sun, with its end-of-summer angle, was rising, but was being blocked from direct view by my neighbor’s house.  Standing there, in the morning light, beautiful rays of sunshine cascaded into my yard.  In those rays were millions of tiny sparkling droplets of water floating in the air.  They hung effortlessly in the air movements of a tender breeze, twisting and bending, in a way that was breathtaking.  Something so subtle that without the sunshine, I may have never noticed.

As I watched the water droplets rise and fall, the thought came to me that without that perfect light in that moment, I would never have seen them.  Those brilliant rays were what were illuminating those tiny, little circles dotting the breeze.  As it shined through, what was once not regularly visible now was.

This illumination brought to mind and best describes a moment I had with God about two weeks ago.  An interaction that seemed to be not all that different from the rest of my day until God’s Word shined into my heart and on to my motives and actions.

…

This summer has been quiet for us.  A much needed break from the pace of the last four to five years.  Please don’t misunderstand me.  We’ve been blessed with lots of good things, but have also had our share of heartache and pain.  So as our summer schedule fell into place, a pleasant surprise revealed that there were much less demands on our time than in years past.

This new quiet space opened up opportunities for us to work on things that had long been waiting.  Rooms that needed to be painted.  Closets that needed to be filtered through.  Mostly smaller tasks and yet, they yielded a refreshing sense of peace and order to areas that had long been calling to be tamed.

It was in one of those areas that I decided to set out a new spot on the web for Families Building Faith.  After prayer and a hefty nudge, I decided to create a blog similar to the one here so that people could easily find and learn about what FBF is and does.  In a way, its own space.  So, one late summer afternoon, at the computer, I sat and contemplated what should this space look like?

I wrestled with different themes and their associated costs.  As I kept playing with them, nothing felt quite right.  Before I knew it, we were to dinner time.  So I unplugged and went downstairs to settle into our evening routine.  All through dinner, I found myself a little short and a little stressed.  Everywhere I looked there seemed so many tasks looming as summer was coming to a close, and I could see in my mind’s eye that not all of them would get done.

Afterwards, we sat down to watch some TV together.  While part of me really wanted to watch the new episodes of our favorite shows, there was this nagging task list still in my vision.  Honestly, the organizing part of me really wanted to tackle them.  Physically I could feel the weight of it as I sunk into our couch.

Now I know I am not the only mom out there to become less than what I want to be at times, and so…as the night wore on and the tasks bounced around in my head, I started to get grumpy.  And then, a little snappy.  And as the third round of asking my son to get things done so that we could head upstairs (and I could get back to building that web space), I became mad and began to lecture.

“If you had just done what I asked in the first place!”

And as I grew more frustrated…

“If you don’t want me to talk this way, you should have done what I asked you to do when I asked you to do it!”

The worse part wasn’t really the words (they rang with quite a bit of truth); instead, it was my tone–a voice full of frustration and distaste.  A tone fraught with anger and meanness.  Sharp words designed to motivate and make things happen as well as to convey dissatisfaction.  So, things were accomplished, but sadly, with only the smallest inkling that something wasn’t right with my handling of the situation.

You see, relationships are a funny dance.  We have these moments where things get on our nerves and we lash out, but we and the relationship, much like a rubber band, return quickly to its original shape.  As I reflected the next day, I realized that both Josh and I desired to get past that moment without really addressing it.  I had a little idea that I had hurt his feelings with my tone, but I didn’t seek to redress it.  Neither of us wanted to discuss his mistakes or mine, even though we both ended up seeking each other out to talk.  Just not about the frustration or hurt that had occurred.  In all frankness, we avoided that conversation all the while trying to restore our relationship despite the awkwardness of the lingering hurts.

Honestly, I am not sure you can ever really address wrong that way…avoidance never tends to heal anything.

So we aimlessly chatted and eventually, he went off to bed.  I stayed up for a while longer, but of course, I was no closer to being done with any of those tasks…least of all, that web page.

The next morning, I awoke.  Out the door to walk the dogs I headed.  The sun was rising beautifully in front of me, and the air was perfectly crisp.  It was, by all accounts, a glorious start to the day.  In my head, wanting to honor God, I started to pray.  Usually I try to follow the flow of praising God for being God, confessing my shortcomings and sin, thanking Him for all that He has done and will do, and then moving towards needed supplications for whoever or whatever comes to mind.  As I came upon identifying my sin, I couldn’t think of any…I walked a few more feet and I don’t remember being able to think of a single one. That should have been my first clue, but hurriedly, I moved on…remember I had other things to focus on!

As my brain so often does, my task list eventually came to light, especially the idea of what was the right way to build that web page.  And though I knew it would seem trivial to the world, I wanted it to be “right” by Him.  I have long heard the argument that God isn’t in the small things, but have long since learned and seen that He is indeed present in all things, big and small.  So many times, with both FBF and my own personal life, God has shown Himself faithful in the littlest details that such an argument no longer carries weight for me.  It was there in that knowledge that I wanted to be cautious and prayerful about what was being developed for FBF.  So as I rounded my neighborhood, I left the details of the cost and how in prayer asking God for some insight and confirmation on the best path.

My feet eventually came back to my front door, and once inside, I sat down to spend some time in God’s Word, hoping to learn something new for the day.   It was then that I opened to Mark 7:1-23.  Here’s my condensed version of what I read:

Some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law had come to Jesus and noticed that a few of His disciples had not washed their hands before eating.  It was a Jewish tradition to wash your hands and other items before you ate.  So they asked Jesus, “‘Why don’t Your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with “unclean” hands?'” (Mark 7:5).

Much to their surprise, Jesus had a lot to say.  He spoke to them of how they were focusing on their own traditions and rules before men instead of what truly made them unclean before God.  Remember, they were the ones who started the whole “unclean” conversation.  Jesus pointed out that it really isn’t about your outward appearance of religion, but more about the inward status of your heart that makes you clean or unclean.

“‘Listen to Me, everyone, and understand this.  Nothing outside a man can make him “unclean” by going into him.  Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him “unclean.”‘” (verses 14-15)

And He goes on:

“‘Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him “unclean”?  For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.'” (verse 18)

“He went on:  ‘What comes out of a man is what make him “unclean.”  For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.  All these evils come from inside and make a man “unclean.”‘”  (verses 20-22)

So there I sat wondering exactly how could this Scripture apply to myself?  I mean I had nothing to confess earlier that morning, right?  And yet, I knew He was saying something important.  Trusting that God knows our every thought and prayer, all of a sudden understanding came to me that made me want to shutter.

Here I had spent the better part of morning (and the evening before) worrying about FBF “looking” right.  While washing hands can prevent uncleanliness, Jesus’ point went way deeper…it doesn’t prevent the contamination inside of us that often results from sin and its correlating stress, guilt and pain that we carry as a result of such choices.  I had been so worried about trying to build the best “look” to FBF’s page that I totally missed how I really looked before Him and Josh when I became short, mean, demanding and unmerciful the night before–the results of willingly engaging in sinful behavior.

As I started to contemplate just what He was saying, I found myself quickly justifying my sins with the question:  “Why was I so snappy?”  Yes, I had easily and quickly turned my focus to the “causes” that led me to those sins, or so I thought…

Before I knew it I had written down four different reasons all ready and willing to validate my behavior.  But somehow, that just didn’t seem right.  Thinking on the idea that what makes us “unclean” comes from inside us, I decided to stop in my tracks and turn away from the excuses.  I needed to admit and face that how I treated my son with frustration, sharpness and a mean tone came from within me.  It was a choice I made.  Nothing forced me.  Yes, I could justify it away if I wanted to, but that really was too easy of a road to take.  Jesus was pointing to something more…

My concern and focus that morning on making sure the outside things were “correct” had missed entirely the things that weren’t “right” in God’s eyes that were going on inside of me.  My heart’s status shouldn’t and can’t depend on my external circumstances.  What comes out of me comes from within me; it is the result of what is occurring inside of me.

The Bible note in the NIV seemed to confirm my thoughts:  “Jesus replaced the normal Jewish understanding of defilement with the truth that defilement comes from an impure heart, not the violation of external rules. Fellowship with God is not interrupted by unclean hands or food, but by sin.”  New International Version (NIV) Study Bible, Bible note to Mark 7:21-23.

Pause.  Hmmm…and maybe a little more than just an ouch.

I suddenly felt embarrassed by my lack of humility and unwillingness to see my sin that morning as I walked with God telling Him I couldn’t think of anything.  Really, really…I couldn’t think of anything?  I couldn’t remember the pained look on my son’s face or his hands going to his ears when my voice began to rise.  I couldn’t remember that even though I didn’t want to admit I had not handled myself correctly, I found myself wanting to comfort him and reassure him without apologizing for the verbal hurt I had inflicted.  And all of sudden, I wasn’t so blind anymore. It was all there before me…

Ironically, I found myself telling God how truly sorry I was for the ugliness of my sin that had been shielded and cloaked in parental justifications.  I had gone to bed easily the night before, and with no regret, I walked my entire walk not considering the impact of my choices less than twelve hours before.  Much like the Pharisee, I had willingly concerned myself with appearances that could be seen, and eagerly swept under the carpet the inward issues that I didn’t care to deal with nor desired to learn to control.

So with, pencil in hand and a much more willing heart, I prayed for more wisdom to understand better the lesson and the list that Jesus was laying before me…

“He went on:  What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.'”  Mark 7:20