Dig It Up.
From Ezra, chapters 9 & 10.
Ezra was a prophet and one of the leaders of the Israelites as they were coming out of exile in Babylon. He was well acquainted with the laws and decrees God had given the Israelites. In Ezra 9:1, Ezra was approached by some Jewish officials and told,
"The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices...they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness."
The Israelites had gone against a very strict command from God not to marry, or give their daughters in marriage, to the polluted and corrupt peoples around them. It had nothing to do with skin color or ethnicity, and everything to do with the detestable practices and influences that would bleed into Israelite culture. This decree wasn’t new, but even with knowledge of the command God gave them, the leaders and officials of Israel slowly started marrying pagan women.
We see the problems this caused all throughout the bible. Saul, David, Solomon, Ahab, and more were deeply corrupted by a pagan wife (Or wives…oof)
Their hearts were always led astray. That's how powerful our marriage bonds, sexual connections, and even friendships can be. When we give ourselves to the wrong people or practices, we are caught in the of web compromise and sin before even realizing it.
Ezra, along with the people, decided to make a covenant with the Lord to send their foreign wives and children away. Eventually they go case by case and make decisions by a court to decide each family's move.
If the foreign women followed God, obviously they weren’t sent away.
So, what is a possible application for us today? We haven't married pagan women that seduce us into evil, idolatrous ways. (At least I hope that’s not your case.)
Here's a take away...
The face and actions of evil are often beautiful and attractive, just like these women likely were. Masks can seem innocent. The mystery of what you don’t have or know can be enticing. Interestingly enough, sin comes in the form of deception more than any other - the longing for the unknown reward. Ever heard of the forbidden fruit in the story of Adam and Eve? The allure was not their hunger for a tasty meal, it was the deceptive promise of gaining what they did not have. Rarely does compromise leap from the shadows and reveal it's true self. It is almost always the smiling, simple, small things, that grow into the giant beasts.
So, ask yourself today, "What pollutes my mind? What causes me to slowly start making decisions that the Christ-follower version of myself wouldn't recognize?" There's always a root, but we often only trim the vine (symptom) and then it grows back. We must pull the roots up of our sin, not just trim the noticeable parts. We often ignore the root because of the effort we expect it takes to pull it, or we’re afraid of the thorns that will prod and poke us as we pry. But, what if we just decided to address that ugly secret, sin, or temptation head on?
STORY TIME!
Last year, there was a giant, ugly, dead bush rooted in my yard. I hadn't touched it since my family and I moved into our house. I assumed it would be a massive undertaking to dig up, however I finally nudged it one day and realized how weak it actually was. As I grabbed the top and pulled, the ENTIRE 4ft tall behemoth came right up. I had not touched it for years simply due to the fact it "looked" too hard to deal with. All-the-while, it was an eye sore to my house and my neighborhood. Next to it was a big thorn bush that I had left for close to four months for a similar reason. I didn’t want the thorns to rip me up. But, after my victory with the giant bush, I naturally felt inspired. I grabbed the roots of the thornbush and, to my SHOCK, the roots weren't deep and the thorns were only above the surface. It also uprooted easily and I didn’t get a scratch. Did you catch that? The thorns were only on the surface. The thornbush’s strength was only in it’s appearance. What something looks like isn’t always what it truly is.
Now, will all of our sins and temptations be easy to uproot? NO! Will we always come out unscathed? It isn’t likely, but how many things are we avoiding simply due to the difficulty we assign to it? I was dead wrong on my assessments and this has also been true in my spiritual life. What I THINK isn’t always the TRUTH.
This flower bed situation reminded me to deal with the ugly stuff. What "ugly stuff" could you deal with today that you've ignored due to it looking too difficult to uproot? Sometimes it takes rolling up your sleeves, getting on your knees, and digging into the “dirt” with God. You may be surprised at what comes up with His help.
Challenge: Be brave enough to call out your sin before God and start to “dig”. Ask God to search your inner-most heart for anything that needs uprooting. David wrote in Psalm 139:23-24, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
Let God lead you in “the way everlasting”, even if it’s scary. The threat of cuts, bruises, and weariness are not worth the continued side-step that pretends there’s nothing hurting you, and potentially your family. God wants to plant something beautiful where the pain once grew.