Practical Dream Interpretation Pt 1: Function over form, and looking for cultural idioms

One of my passions is interpreting dreams, and teaching others how to do it for themselves. I am going to tell you right now that the books on the market are practically useless, they are one person’s opinion and although they can be right on some concepts, an American writing a book about dream interpretation often won’t be able to help someone living in an entirely different culture.

What I like to focus in on is how to look at dreams, and when I teach this I use my own dreams as an example — after all, that is how I learned to do it. If you look at your dreams using the same general principles, you will be better able to decipher them.

So I am going to tell you the dream I had 8 days ago and then take you through my process.

In the dream I had a man I used to be associated with approach me about desiring to have my wheelbarrow because he wanted to use it (stop laughing, this will make sense!) but I responded, “No, I still need it.” Behind me, my husband said, “No you don’t.” I turned to focus on my husband and then went to look for my wheelbarrow, wondering why I didn’t need it. The wheelbarrow I found was not the one we have in real life, but larger, and it had nothing in it but was badly rusted along one side of the rim. I reached out and touched the rusty area and it crumbled off, leaving it unsafe to be used. The man took it anyway without a word to me for his own use.

I actually puzzled over this one for about a week. I would come up with scenarios but I knew they weren’t correct. So last night while praying in bed, I said to myself, “Okay, what is the function of the wheelbarrow?” Wheelbarrows carry our burdens for us. Then I had to say to myself, “Why a wheelbarrow instead of a suitcase (which oftentimes represents personal “baggage”) and why don’t I need it anymore?”

So I started thinking about what wheelbarrows carry — stuff that belongs outside the house, oftentimes manure (which is what a lot of the burdens we carry amount to, if you get my drift), or dirt, but always stuff that has no place inside the house. So now, why not a wagon?

Wagons trail behind us while wheelbarrows present our burdens in front of us. So really, this would be a way of placing our burdens between ourselves and others, carrying them around with us, and really no one can ignore a wheelbarrow that is between them and the person pushing it. Heck, you can ram a person with a wheelbarrow and harm them. This is going to represent a way of life, living with your burdens in plain sight, an obstacle to people getting close, you get the idea.

Now, my husband told me that I do not need it. I knew right away that this wasn’t literally my husband Mark, this is a representation of Messiah as represented by husband, the Master of the House (being a place where no wheelbarrow belongs). After I turned my focus upon Him, hearing Him and devoting my attention to Him, I saw that my wheelbarrow was not as I expected — it was now empty, and rusted. It had outlived its usefulness and when I touched it again, it started to crumble. If you have ever seen this happen, you know that metal that has rusted to the point of crumbling is sharp and no good anymore.

Sadly, this man took it anyway without another word. (Honestly, I am sad to see that he has taken this. I have lived this way, pushing my issues around in front of me and making it difficult for people to get close, and really forcing people to deal with my burdens.) I don’t wish it on anyone, and especially not on their family and friends.

So, do you see what I did? I focused on function first and foremost, what does the wheelbarrow do? Where is it used? What does a husband do? What function does a rusty wheelbarrow have? Secondly, I looked at comparisons — why this and not that? Why a wheelbarrow and not a wagon or a suitcase? Third, I looked for cultural idioms — and the idioms of my culture will be different than those of other cultures. In this case, carrying a burden is an idiom that means living with emotional trauma, resentment, a desire for revenge, or to be justified; there are many possibilities. My wheelbarrow was empty – meaning that I do not have these burdens to carry before me anymore. Fourth, or maybe first in any dream — be prepared to look at yourself in an unfavorable light. If you can’t assess yourself honestly, you will never get the right interpretation; you have to be able to see the encouragement and the rebukes.

I love this dream. Not only is it confirmation of some changes in my life, but also because it is an easy dream to use as a teaching tool. Notice what I did not focus on – color, numbers, etc. I find that dream books often overemphasize these things, but the Bible doesn’t. The Bible uses a lot of cultural references, and is really heavy on puns and idioms. Colors and numbers can be important, but are often just side issues. Oftentimes when I see people trying to interpret Daniel’s dreams, they are doing so as 20th century Americans — presuming that a bear is Russia and not even bothering to find out what a bear represented in the ancient near east. Now our dreams are different, and God will use things that will make sense to us. Jacob’s ladder was not a wooden ladder, but probably a ziggurat, which in the ancient near east represented the gods ascending and descending to earth via the ziggurat stairway into Mesopotamia. Jacob would have understood this, he would have seen this and known exactly what it was and that it was saying, “No, Ur is not where God has established His Kingdom, Israel is the place where He sets His Name.” Dreams are specific to the person receiving them. The Baker dreamed about baskets of bread, which meant something to him, and the cup bearer dreamed about grapes and wine. When God is talking to us, He will use His intimate knowledge of our lives.

I hope this helps. Have a blessed week, and remember, if you want me to see your comment, I am still off facebook until December 26 so you have to make it on the blog. My blood pressure is textbook beautiful 120/78 and I am having a wonderful, restful time of study and prayer.

Update: Interpretations are often incomplete until what is in them comes to pass. This morning the man who was in my dream got in touch with me and apologized for hurting me a couple of years ago, no excuses offered. I was right about the wheelbarrow, it’s function, and about the identity of my husband, but I was wrong about the man because of my preconceived notions. He was the only person who could take that wheelbarrow away and he did it. I include this in order to caution people not to get locked into an interpretation as being the gospel truth. Dreams can guide us, rebuke us, encourage us, but they are not the same as scripture.

What David teaches us about how to conduct ourselves when being hunted

First of all, thank you so much. Even though I have been off of facebook (and will remain gone until December 26) and wasn’t able to directly support the process, you got the word out and helped me to give away 555 more copies of my book on Kindle (no, I didn’t make that number up). So far, we have been able to give away 1419 copies, with more to come next year when I renew my kindle contract! I am so grateful for your support and help in all of this, and I pray fervently that this book is helping people understand the character of our great God and King, our Father and Master. It is such a privilege to be able to go before the world and teach about His character from the whole Word. He deserves out praise and He deserves to be known. Everything in our lives, everything we go through is secondary to promoting His glory through our behavior towards Him and each other. Let us never fail to love and guard one another, as he loves and guards us.

As I have been sharing lately, I have been teaching my sons from I Samuel for the past few weeks. And it is no secret that I love the character of David on the run, hiding in caves – an amazing man doing great things under terrible stress. I meditate upon him a lot because I see his character under persecution as what mine should look like but too often doesn’t. It is easy to lash out when wronged, but how did David handle the character assassination, the paranoia of king Saul, the actual attempts on his life, and the fact that people were aiding and abetting Saul’s attempts to hunt David down like a dog, or a flea (in David’s own words).

If anyone knew the literal ups and downs of life, it was David. The young man came in from tending the sheep one day, only to get drenched with oil by the hand of the last of the Judges, the prophet Samuel, and declared king! And instead of putting on airs, he went back to the sheep — not unlike his predecessor Saul, who went back home to his father. David ended up in court not through his own efforts, but because of his musical talents! He ended up fighting Goliath not because he rushed off to war, but because his father sent him to the front with supplies about 40 days later. He ended up a commander of men not because he sought it out, but because the king placed him in command. He ended up married to the king’s daughter because the king wanted David dead and had set a bride price of 100 Philistine foreskins, as David could never afford the bride price of a princess and yet also could not refuse the honor outright. David was honored by God, and being honored by God doesn’t mean that we will always do what is right, but it does mean that when people do wrong to us, it will often backfire in their faces if we do what is right (and sometimes even when we do wrong).

Saul was absolutely God’s anointed; there is no question about that. But being God’s anointed does not mean that one is automatically right, just, or faithful. God’s anointing wasn’t a total character override, giving Saul no choice but to act according to the will of God. The Spirit does not possess the believer, as though it was a demon. The Spirit guides, but we have control over ourselves. Saul had every opportunity to get it right, and he had Samuel there to guide him (how many of us wish we had someone like that to help us out?), but he made evil choices which resulted in him losing the Spirit, taking on a demonic spirit, and succumbing to paranoia and fear. He spent years hunting David down like an animal, without cause, and even though he sometimes came to his senses and realized it, he never allowed his momentary remorse to lead him into true repentance.

So, we have David who was accused without evidence; he was hunted, his allies were murdered, and he was treated with dishonor by the very people whom he was helping. What was David’s response? Was it a coup? Did he try to seize the throne? Goodness knows the kingdom would have been better off without Saul than with him. No, he did not move against Saul. In fact, we never see him working against Saul but only for the good of the kingdom, oftentimes behind the scenes quietly caring for shepherds and killing off the enemies of Israel, even while on the run. Not only was David often not honored by the very people he saved, but he was also forced to run lest they betray him to the king. Did David kill Israelites in revenge for their betrayal? No, he didn’t. David kept on fighting for them. David was not perfect; he had his moments of weakness. He almost killed the household of Nabal (for refusing to honor him), he cut off the hem of Saul’s garment (an act that meant rebellion in the ancient world) – but in each of those cases he was brought to repentance.

Righteous people, those with God’s own heart, have moments of great trial and testing and sometimes they make plans to do evil things and sometimes they even start down the road and sadly sometimes they even carry them out. The real measure of character is whether or not they can turn around once they have started. Regardless of what David did in his life, over and over again, even after doing great evil, he showed that he could turn around. He learned that lesson in the caves. In the caves is where David teaches us to be hunted without cause, and to not respond with evil. We need that lesson because there is nothing more tempting than to return evil for evil, and to even mistake that evil for righteousness. Most people would have said that Saul had an overthrow coming, and in the eyes of the world that might have been true, but God told David that he was the king and so David had to trust God to work out the details.

Did David confront Jonathan about the danger he was in? Yes he did. Did David try to recruit Jonathan to his side? No he didn’t. Did David confront Saul about his accusations? Yes he did, years later after refusing to kill him when he had the opportunity. David never tried to build an empire; David ran from his pursuers and did the work of YHVH and people chose to follow him. Everything David did preserved the lives of God’s people, whereas Saul endangered their lives. David refused to be treacherous (before he was king), whereas Saul lived by treachery, David held his tongue as Saul ranted, David never took the kingship from Saul but Saul took David’s wife and gave her to another. Saul swore oaths to refrain from harming David, only to break them. David swore never to do evil to Saul and kept his oath.

Saul was God’s anointed. The calling of God is without repentance, Saul sat as king until the day he died. People had a choice whether or not they wanted to follow Saul, but they didn’t have a choice as to whether he sat as king or not. That choice had been made by God. David understood that no matter what Saul did to him, that it was for God to remove him from the throne of Israel than to take matters into his own hands. Even though it took many years, God did remove him — but only after He had made David into the kind of man who knew how to respond to threats, disloyalty and slights to his honor without treachery. David had to become the kind of king who understood that the Kingdom is established on justice and righteousness, from the greatest to the least, and that to truly be a great king, one must exhibit the character of God. Saul was sadly never able to grasp that he wasn’t made king in order to be in charge for the sake of being in charge, he was king so that he could represent God and administer righteousness and justice to the people. The great kings that came after David did that, but the evil kings did not.

Being hunted is a dreadful thing, but it is not the most important thing. Being hunted is what is done to us, and we cannot control that. How we respond to being hunted is quite another. Everything done to us can change us for the better or for the worse, only we can decide which outcome will prevail. Perhaps it would be good for us to see ourselves as kings and queens in training, when we are being mercilessly hunted, and in that way it will be easier to redeem these evil times. David had a choice, to continue to be hunted or to end it all by hunting down Saul and in the end he decided that it was better to be the hunted than to be the hunter.

Relational Sanity Pt 5: Do we have the right to condemn ourselves for the sins of an abuser?

Warning: This post might be very disturbing as it entails the fallout of child sexual abuse. I have tried to be as sensitive as possible.

It’s been over 20 years now and I wasn’t even a believer but people were already confiding their darkest struggles to me. I can see her face, although I can’t remember her name. Her pain and shame was so intense that I am surprised she was even able to tell me.

“I remember the look on his face and I should have known that something was wrong, that he was a pervert.”

I felt my mouth open a little bit as my jaw dropped. This was the first time I had seen anyone do this — blame oneself for being victimized, but I have seen it countless times in the years that passed. She had just related to me how the teenage male babysitter was having her perform oral sex on him. She was about 5 years old, and in the 1970’s 5 years-olds knew nothing about sex. It wasn’t on tv and it was barely in the movies, her parents didn’t have porn in the home, she was unexposed and innocent — and back then no one taught us about good touch/bad touch. We were easy prey in those days, but the predators were not as bold either.

“Why do you think you should have recognized that look?”

“You know what it looks like when a man is enjoying himself sexually – how could I have missed it?”

“But how does a 5 year old know that look? Did you have any reason to recognize it at that point?”

It was time for her jaw to drop, “No, I guess not.”

One of the biggest problems with child sex abuse is when the child looks back on it as an adult through adult eyes.

“I should have known…”

“I should have seen…”

“I should have recognized the signs…”

To which I always respond, “Know what? Something that you were never taught? See what? Things that you have no context to understand? What signs? Signs you were never instructed to look for?”

It is not only true for sexual abuse, but all forms of child abuse. The adult looks back with the “should haves” that are completely unreasonable, totally illogical, and utterly unmerciful. They are filtering the abuse through what they know now, and what they are capable of now. To view the abuse through a position of strength and knowledge is easier on the mind than acknowledging themselves as a little, defenseless, innocent child.

I generally ask the person, if a person of that age (whatever age they are condemning themselves at) came up to them sobbing and told them it happened to them, would they treat the child the way they are treating themselves? In this case:

“If a 5 year old came to you and told you what you just told me, would it even remotely occur to you to tell them that they should have seen the look in his eyes as dangerous?”

“Oh my gosh no, of course not, that would be inhuman!”

“And yet you have no problem with assaulting yourself as a five year old. Why is that?”

And then the truth comes out –

*sobbing* “Because someone has to be responsible, someone has to take the blame, someone has to feel bad about what happened to me. And I let my little brother watch while it happened.”

“I am sorry your little brother saw that — but who really made that decision to hurt him? Was it you? Remember, you had no way of knowing that it was wrong, so why would it occur to you that he shouldn’t watch?”

“I never thought of that.”

“I know, you have been so hurt that there was no way to think clearly about something like this, how could you even try? Who knew about sexual pleasure, you or the babysitter?”

“He did”

“And who knew that what he was doing was wrong? After all, he waited until he was babysitting and never tried it with your parents at home.”

“He did.”

“Who had authority in this situation? And how did our parents, back in the 70’s, tell us to behave when the babysitter came over?”

“He did, and they told us to be good for the babysitter.”

“That’s right. They did, and you had no capacity to know why you shouldn’t do it, he presented it as a silly game. There was no reason for you to suspect otherwise. You weren’t stupid, or gullible, or naive, or deserving — you were simply a five year old with a five year old mind and a five year old innocence that was entirely appropriate. Someone took advantage of the natural, normal condition of being 5 years old. He counted on you being five years old because he knew you would be defenseless. To blame yourself is like a blind person blaming themselves if someone trips them. It isn’t fair, and when you do it you are lying about yourself and making yourself pay for the crimes of someone else. I wish your parents had pressed charges and I am sorry that they didn’t. I wish there was justice for you, but justice can’t be served if you have locked yourself into prison to pay for someone else’s crimes. I want you to declare that precious, beautiful five year old child innocent on all counts, because that is the truth.”

************

So all that being said, are you punishing yourself for the sins committed against you? Are you judging yourself harshly because you need someone to pay the price for what was done to you? Can you absolve yourself of the things that were done to you, and not by you? Just as important as acknowledging our own sins is learning to refuse responsibility for the sins of others. Sometimes it is hard to know the difference, and the people who hurt others often work diligently to blame what they have done on the victim, but we have to learn to look at the reality of the situation. If it was someone else, would we treat them as inhumanely as we treat ourselves? True honesty and compassion in judgment has to apply to ourselves as well as others. No one should pay the price for someone else’s crimes for the rest of their life, especially when they were the victim in the first place.

Jonathan and Saul — ignoring evil in the Body of Messiah

So often, when someone comes to me heartbroken about spiritual abuse (abuse carried out by a minister against a parishioner, often in full view of the congregation) they are not nearly as upset about what the minister did as they are about the lack of concern from their brothers and sisters who saw exactly what was going on. Imagine being violated in front of an audience who show no concern nor take any action against your attacker!

This week I am teaching my sons from I Samuel, and today we read chapters 21-23.

Jonathan loved David as himself, they were in Covenant together. Yet David routinely had spears chucked at him by Jonathan’s father King Saul, and even escaped a nighttime attempt on his life which also was ordered by Saul. So we have to wonder what was going on in Jonathan’s mind when David said, “Dude, your dad is like trying to kill me,” and Jonathan replied, “No way!” Seriously?

Um…. where was Jonathan where the spears were being hurled? It was Jonathan’s own sister in bed when the men came in to kill her husband, David. Good grief Jonathan, after the first spear got lodged in the wall the threat should have been rather difficult to ignore.

But I have seen this same thing happen in church. How many times does the pastor have to preach against people from the pulpit (either by name or with just enough details that everyone knows exactly who they mean) before someone starts thinking that “Hey, maybe this guy has a problem.”

Saul threw spears and sent armed soldiers, some pastors throw words and gossip over the phone. And yet the people closest to them turn a blind eye and dismiss the obvious, that the man with the spear, or the words, has become a threat to the Body. And the reason is generally the same. Saul was intimidated by David; he considered a man who loved him like a father to be a threat (even when no one else saw the threat). Oftentimes we see the same thing in church. No one else sees the threat, and so the Pastor has to make sure that everyone sees it. Just like Saul, who loved to tell people how dangerous David was to him, about the unsubstantiated threats to Saul’s life and throne, even though David never once acted against him. And evidently Saul was able to convince some people, because he never lacked for loyal minions willing to go hunt down David, despite their being no evidence of his guilt (apart from Saul’s accusations).

Interestingly enough, Jonathan refused to believe the overwhelming weight of evidence. He ignored the death threats, the actual attempts on David’s life, and the armed execution squad that invaded his own sister’s bedroom. He tried to deny it to David, and even tried to prove David wrong. It was only after three days of trying to prove David wrong that a spear hurled at his own head convinced him.

Isn’t that typical? So often in these situations, the people I talk to themselves turned a blind eye while the pastor abused whatever person was in line before them. It might be about wanting to put our faith in a man, but I know that a lot of it is simply about wanting church to go on as usual. We want the Pastor to look good so we can look good, so we can pretend that we are the right people who are doing the right things. Maybe we even see and we hope someone else will have the courage to speak up so we won’t have to. And so when the accusations come, we don’t question them the way we should; we don’t demand proof and we just continue to allow the anonymous character assassination to go on; we don’t consider how deeply crushing it is to someone to have no way to counter accusations that aren’t even being given out in the open (or even discussed in person), but instead hide behind the cowardice of anonymity. Or maybe we enjoy hearing someone rebuked as long as we don’t have to look them in the eye, as long as we assume they have it coming. But we can’t put our faith in any man to be that honest with no proof. It is an injustice to the accused when we sit through those accusations in silence, and not only that but paying him to to it!

So what convinced Jonathan? Jonathan was convinced when he got treated like David. Selective outrage is when we only respond when we are the offended party. when we or sometimes someone close to us is abused in some way. Until we feel the pain, the pain is deemed irrelevant and that is a terrible cancer within the Body.

Sadly, even after that attack, Jonathan stayed with the illegitimate ruler over the people when he could have given up his comforts to follow David. As a result, he got to watch (figuratively) the destruction of the priests of YHVH, from the city of Nob, as well as their families. He got to stand by as the Gibeonites (under Covenant with Israel) were slaughtered. David loved Jonathan, but I don’t. I have no respect for him; he stood by and allowed too much evil to happen to too many people — and he ended up dying right alongside his father. The consequence for tolerating injustice and oppression, in a Kingdom or in a Church, will be to share in the fallout when God restores righteousness and justice.

Honestly, it would be better to live in a cave with the King than to live in a palace with an oppressor.

David and Uriah — What they teach us about betrayal in ministry

Ever wonder why some people will go to such great lengths to defend, deny and cover up the sins of their ministers? Even if it means hurting innocent people?

I was laying in bed this morning meditating on the chapters in I Samuel that I will be teaching to my sons this morning, when a completely different story about King David came to mind. Last week, I listened to a teaching from Ryan White about David and all his wives, and how in the ancient near east, a king’s acquired honor was elevated in the eyes of the world according to how many wives he possessed. The scriptural directive was clear, that Israelite kings were not to gather many wives to themselves (Deut 17:17) — in other words, “This is not how you are to go about raising your esteem (honor) in the eyes of the world.” Israelite kings were to be set apart not by the number of their wives, or their wealth, or their horses like pagan kings, but according to the righteousness of God.

It got me thinking about something that had always puzzled me — “Why do so many people cover up and defend the sins of their ministers, calling the dishonorable honorable?”

David, of course, started out as the youngest son in a very large family. He was a lowly shepherd, so lowly that when Samuel was gathering the sons of Jesse, David wasn’t even included. But God chose David, proving that His anointing will find you wherever you are. David, in his younger years, never exalted himself based on this anointing. It would appear that he took the promise and believed it to such an extent that he was willing and able to endure anything and everything. He was willing to fight with Goliath — because he knew he was the future king of Israel, so he couldn’t die in the attempt. He fought battle after battle — because as long as he wasn’t sitting as king, he knew his life wasn’t going to be over anytime soon. In the eyes of the people, David was able to earn honor through these mighty deeds and it was his honor that got him in trouble with King Saul. You see, in ancient near eastern society, there is only so much honor to go around. If I get more honor, someone else has to receive less. David’s exploits were causing him to be elevated in the eyes of the people, whereas Saul wasn’t looking so hot anymore. Hence, “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands” became the women’s song (I Sam 18:7-8) and Saul realized that a regime change was imminent. Once a king was sufficiently diminished in the ancient near east, it was just a matter of time.

David lived an incredibly virtuous life while he was on the run, fighting battles and living in caves, and also in the beginning of his kingship. But in 2 Sam 11:1 we see something interesting beginning to happen. The season has come when kings go to war and David remains at home. It is not written why, so I will not speculate. But David is home while his armies are fighting against the Ammonites, and thus he sees something that will change both his life and his kingship. David is about to decrease his honor in the sight of God, and worse, he is about to do great wickedness in order to keep from decreasing his honor among the people. And others are going to help him do it.

Uriah the Hittite was one of David’s mighty men, some of whom had been among those hiding in the caves of Israel all those years as Saul pursued David. These men were unquestioningly loyal to David; they were amazing warriors who sometimes did insane things for their king. Now we don’t know how long Uriah had been with David, as his name is last in the list given in 2 Sam 23. Was he the least of them, or was he placed last for emphasis? I do not know, but I like to think of these men as our equivalent of the Green Berets, the Navy Seals and the Army Rangers all put together. And because Uriah was such a great warrior and such an honorable man, he had a beautiful wife and a home within sight of the palace roof.

David saw her, he desired her, he inquired after her, he sent for her and he committed adultery with her. That adulterous act resulted in a pregnancy and a bigger problem. Someone was about to lose their honor — definitely Bathsheba, who would not be able to explain a pregnancy with her husband off at war, but potentially also David, if she identified him as the father. David had a reputation as a righteous king, and Uriah was one of the great heroes of Israel who was no doubt the subject of many stories around the hearths of Israel. What young boy in the kingdom would not want to be Uriah the Hittite! Uriah had honor from great battles and great feats of bravery within those battles; he would have been a national hero. What happens if the nation discovers that their godly king has defiled the wife of a national hero while the former was tarrying safely at home and the latter was in the mist of the battle? David was not willing to find out.

And so David instigates an elaborate deception designed to get Uriah to think that he, and not David, has impregnated his wife. But Uriah’s honor will not allow him pleasure in the court of David while other men are dying on the battlefield. When David sees that, unlike himself, Uriah cannot be compromised, he has Joab stage a battlefield murder by proxy. David literally feeds a loyal hero to the Ammonites in order to retain his reputation. He takes Bathsheba for his wife and figured everything would be just fine.

And he would have gotten away with it too, had God not sent Nathan the prophet to him – delivering what has to amount to the gold standard for stealth rebukes.

But I said this was about ministry. It is. Ministry also operates on the honor/shame principle. Whoever has the most honor in the eyes of the people is the person who gets to dictate doctrine, call the shots on how the money is spent – whoever has the honor gets to be the kind of king they want to be. If the person in charge is righteous and humble, this works well — as with David in the caves. David was an excellent king when he was on the run; he was always working for the welfare of the people, and even able to accept counsel from the wise wife of a foolish man (I Sam 25). David was an amazing king when he wasn’t wearing a crown, when he was king but not acting like one. He was a great king when all he had was the anointing and a heart to serve. And I am not saying that he didn’t do great things while he was on the throne, because that would not be true – but I will say that he was a different man and not always a better one. When David became a king, he became like a king, and kings in the ancient near east took what they wanted and did whatever they had to do in order to keep it.

The title of king never made David kingly; his behavior made him kingly. Once he had the title, he didn’t have to prove that he was kingly anymore and perhaps that was his downfall in this matter. He was king, so he didn’t have to go to war anymore, he didn’t have to behave honorably all the time, and he didn’t have to restrain his desires anymore. A title can be a crutch, and that’s probably a big part of why I automatically suspect anyone who uses one. A title can tell people what you are so that they don’t have to discern it by your actions. A title is a great distraction.

What would have happened if the servant who was sent to go and fetch Bathsheba had instead said, “Oh no my master, do not do this thing against Uriah your faithful servant who is fighting against the king’s enemies! What will you do if the woman becomes pregnant?” What if he had appealed to David’s honor instead of doing what David commanded? I wonder if David would have relented. Perhaps not, but at least then the servant would not have blood on his hands. Perhaps David would have killed him and then sent someone else. Unfortunately, we don’t know.

Being God’s anointed does not come with a license to do whatever one wants to do, nor does it give anyone the authority to enlist others to aid us in our sins. Nathan should not have been the first person to speak up to David, months later. But this is what happens in churches when we seek to elevate the honor of men instead of the honor of God, when we seek to hold on to our honor at the cost of righteousness. David lost sight of the fact that he wasn’t king for the sake of being king, he was king for the sake of being the representation of God’s righteousness and justice towards His people. Many ministers lose sight of the fact that their primary job is not to build a ministry but to represent God’s character, according to their calling, in the world. They are called to be vessels of honor, according to their behavior, not according to the worldy standards of wealth, influence and appearance. A shiny suit, a fancy car and an international ministry are nothing if we have them at the expense of faithfully representing the character of our King. But those are the things that people esteem (honor), and so the people “in the pews” will often acquire honor for themselves through association. Therefore, if the person they follow is diminished, so are they, rendering them all too willing to fight to keep his sins from the public eye.

So much betrayal in ministry amounts to nothing more than a pastor perceiving a threat to his acquired (earned through works) and ascribed (by nature of his calling) honor, and seeking to do whatever he can to hold on to it. But I ask, when did our Messiah ever resort to unrighteous or underhanded acts in order to hold on to His honor? Where were the desperate attempts at damage control when He was being slandered and plotted against (for real)? Where were the clandestine gossip sessions (disguised as prayer requests), where was the character assassination, and where was the pulling down of others in order to inflate himself? Messiah showed us that when we are in the right — we have to let the attacks come and let Him be our vindication. We have to handle everything in a righteous, transparent manner. And interestingly, when people are in fact innocent they tend to do just that. It’s when people are wrong that they resort to evil methods in order to hold on to their reputations and pull others into a conspiracy to do the same.

But when we have dishonored ourselves, the second to last thing we should ever try to do is come to our own defense. The absolute last thing we should do is to recruit allies in our endeavor to paint our dishonor as honorable. Repentance is the only path that produces good fruit. If we are on the wrong path, then we should turn around instead of killing anyone who reminds us that we are headed the wrong direction. We can kill a thousand people, or destroy a thousand reputations, or betray a thousand of the mighty men who have faithfully served us – but we are still facing in the wrong direction. Our honor is not worth upholding at such a high cost. Our honor is nothing if we drag the name of our King through the dirt, and especially if we use it as an excuse to teach others to do the same. And we should never, as followers, protect someone just because we don’t want to be embarrassed by the fact that we were allied with them. It is a pathetic thing, when we really look at it, to protect a person just so that we won’t look like fools when their deeds are revealed.

Truly, we should never compromise ourselves to the point where the threat of looking like fools will cause us to ignore, excuse, or cover up the sins of another — especially when the cost is even one innocent person’s reputation. And when we do it, we should not fool ourselves into thinking we did it for them. Truth is, we want to be on the side of righteousness, even if we have to destroy righteousness in order to maintain the illusion. But it is better to be ashamed and be on the side of truth, than to maintain the illusion of honor through lies. Admitting we were taken in, and that we were following someone unworthy and walking away is more embarrassing, yes, but it is also more honorable than covering up his sins in the perverse hope that we get to maintain our dignity. We have to be willing to admit to the world that we were wrong.

And so now I have a message to everyone who has been abused by a minister and watched their closest friends rally around the abuser. You thought it was about you, but it wasn’t — it was about a group of people who don’t want to admit they are following after the wrong person. Their egos won’t allow them to admit it. They would rather sin, they would rather ignore, and cover up, and hurt you — not because they love that minister, not really, but because they love being associated with that minister. They love the “prestige by association,” and they think that preserving his reputation protects theirs. Sadly, you don’t even enter into the equation. And you may feel like that lessens you, but it doesn’t. The truth is that no virtue of ours can overwhelm the senses of a person whose personal illusion of honor is more important to them than real honor. To side with you meant that they would have to admit that their discernment is lacking, and then they would have to question everything that they have done and been taught. Most people don’t want to do that. They would rather be fools than look like fools. No matter how wonderful you are, this is about them not wanting to look at the person they are following with open eyes, and not wanting anyone else in the world to look at them that way either. You can be the most wonderful person presently on this earth, but you still have no power to command the loyalties of a person who doesn’t want their world view challenged. So be encouraged, and accept the reality that you cannot change it, and be free from that burden.

If you want to hear another excellent teaching on Honor and Shame with respect to David and Uriah, check out this one from Matthew VanderEls – I think he picks it up at the 30 minute point, but the whole message is great