Impact of Being Set Apart

One of the consequences of deepening my relationship with the Lord is an increased awareness of how different I am from those around me and indeed from whom I used to be.  Whether it is wisdom, maturity or a heightened sense of how God sees me, I am seeing life and my past through clearer eyes than previously.  Fortunately I am not alone in this.  There are other folks with whom I speak that are experiencing the same discomfort with the rest of the world.  Little things, like walking through a department store, shock me into a fresh appreciation of just how far away from God our society has gone.  I am appalled at the garments that I know people are going to buy to wear or worse yet, put on their children.  I was walking through the mall with a mission to get a cable my husband needed for worship and in front of me was a young couple with twin girls not more than 3 years old.  These little girls were dressed as if they were ready to go "clubbing".  I was in shock.  Where was their innocence?  Would they ever get to just be little girls?

This sharpened vision has also had me look behind me at my own past and I was humbled and ashamed at some of the things of which I was guilty.  Even though this is embarrassing, I am sharing because there may be someone reading this who is walking the path I walked and God so wants to free you from this bondage.  All of my life, my appearance was very important to me.  Can you imagine that as a college student in the early 70's I did not own a pair of jeans???  I "dressed to the 9's" every day.  It was imperative to me that I stood out.  Please understand, this is not "set apart"; I was not saved until my late 30's.  My self esteem was so poor that I did whatever I needed to make myself feel noticed.  Since I knew my legs were my asset, I wore short skirts and if you can imagine this ~ hot pants suits.  I made my clothes and would make suits but instead of skirts, there were hot pants, or a split skirt over the hot pants.  I turned heads alright, but I also gained a reputation that I did not earn. My attire created an impression that was not favorable.  At the time I was incredulous that anybody would believe those lies.  But why wouldn't they?  Actions speak louder than words.

Fast forward. I am now a mom with teenage sons.  I still have a cute figure and still have good legs.  What am I doing?  The same thing I always did, dress to turn heads.  What I never realized until very recently was what I was doing to the young men that were surrounding me because I had three sons.  Men are very visual and are from a very early age.  Simply look at how pornography has seized our youth.  I never stopped to think about what was happening in these impressionable minds because this older woman was "hot".  I shudder now as I take responsibility for what I may have caused these young men to think.  Here I was the mother of one of their friends  who talks about loving the Lord and walking with Him, even giving them advice about how to live their lives for Him, while all that time I am sitting there in inappropriate attire.  

We are responsible for the ripples that our behavior creates.  We are responsible for the impact of our actions and our words.  There is a reason that parents who live a life of "Do as I say and not as I do" have recurring dissonance in their lives.  I look back on my behavior after my divorce and realized that I was guilty of wanting my sons to not reject me the way that I felt rejected because of my failed marriage.  I loved the Lord and was walking out trust with Him by moving and starting over.  Yet my attire and my behavior of partying with my sons and their friends spoke a very different message.  How could I expect them to honor me and respect me when I did not honor or respect myself?  I should not be surprised that my relationships with my sons took a downhill turn at this time.  I could not understand it then, but I do now.  Sadly, I do now.  

If we are going to love the Lord and follow Him with all of our heart, body and spirit, then we need to do so unconditionally and expect to be rejected in the process.  Mark 3:21, 31 21 When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him home with them. "He's out of his mind," they said. 31 Jesus' mother and brothers arrived at the house where he was teaching. They stood outside and sent word for him to come out and talk with them.  Jesus was totally engaged in ministry and He and His disciples were not taking time to eat.  The fervor with which He was ministering disturbed His family.  Their summation?  He was out of His mind!  I can just hear the conversation amongst His family members: "We need to do an intervention.  Let's get him outside and then we will take him away and try and bring him to his senses."  Sound vaguely familiar to anything you experienced?  I can vividly recall my sons being told to not bother me when I was out on our deck.  "Your mother is "talking" to God."  Then being criticized when I came back inside.  Rejection by those that should know us the best because we choose to make God first is difficult to accept.

We must study ourselves and our behavior.  Are we trying to be accepted by this world and its standards or are we choosing a higher road, one that requires us to make decisions that are not conventional?  What does our behavior, our dress, the choices we make for entertainment tell the world about us?  What is foremost in our lives?  I battle with being judgmental about the choices others are making.  I look at them and realize that the agony I am feeling is because I have walked that road and know that it is indeed "vanity fair".  This road is the one most often chosen by the world, and yet the Lord has told us in no uncertain terms that the road to heaven is narrow and the road to hell is broad.  Why should we expect that we would not struggle to stay on this narrow road?  We live in a fallen world and we still must battle the dark forces that are in this world.  One of the most effective ways is to reckon our flesh dead so that we can resist the enemy.  In other words, we have been freed into the battle not from the battle to live as overcomers.    

This has been an exposing word to share with all of you.  I am not proud of what I did.  There are many aspects of my life for which I am eternally grateful that God provides grace to restore me after my repentance.  I wish I could turn the clock back and relive certain aspects of my life. I have no idea what kind of bad seeds I have sown yet I believe that my God is a restorer of life and I pray that He nullifies those bad seeds and replaces them with good seed in each person's life that I impacted.  I continually examine my life now and ask God to show me how He is seeing me.  If I need to be convicted of a change, I pray that He shows me loudly and clearly.  I do not know if this word was for you, my precious friend, or perhaps for someone you know.  In either case, please seize this opportunity to cleanse your life and yourself.  Draw closer to Him in all that you do.  The further we separate ourselves from the world, the closer we come to Him.