This piece sure got me thinking. The line you started with was “cleanse me from my hidden faults.” The text does not add “…by revealing to me all my hidden faults.” I knew a wise person who lived by the slogan: “You cannot heal what you do not acknowledge.” I get that. But it is also overwhelming. I am in charge of all the acknowledging and all the healing!? So I am going to take seriously the implied question in one of your last lines: “…if we want to bring our hidden faults into view.” No thanks. All my recognized and remembered and half-remembered faults are enough for me to pray about and process till the end of the Age. Or maybe the true path is to lean into the Mercy and keep living out the next moment and the next as the Spirit leads.
Thank you for this honest perspective. And hopeful--cleanse me from my hidden faults...leaves it up to the Spirit and not my digging into my sins. We can get caught up in looking to our sins rather than looking to Jesus.
Thank you for this explanation of how a plumb bob works with regards to us. I purchased a plumb bob and it sits in my office as a reminder of this as well as all the building that takes place in scripture.
Finding hidden faults should be an exercise done regularly. That its what communion is for.
The first thing Jesus did at the last supper was to wash their feet. Then he said, As I have done for you, do for one another. He just repeated the New Commandment. Later he said, this is my body broken for you, and then he said, Do this. What could he have meant when he said, Do this? When you pass the bread, it is my body that is to be broken for others, not his. Forgive one another as have forgiven you.
Paul says that we should take communion worthily, and then goes on to explain what he meant by that. You are to examine yourself, not judge (discern) others. Look around the room. The things that bother you in others are the things you yourself are guilty of. You are looking in the mirror. This is what you look like. This is how you find your hidden sins.
Now, forgive them as you have been forgiven. That is your body being broken. Are they a thorn in your side? God's grace is sufficient, for his strength is made perfect in our weakness.
If, after you have forgiven them, you still have a problem with them, you have not taken the beam out of your own eye. Time to get another eye-examine.
This is something we do regularly, so we do not need to overwhelm ourselves trying to deal with everything at once. Deal with the little things first. You will get hang of it.
I am both a psychotherapist and post-evangelical who is still very rooted in the Christian tradition. On the one hand, I have found psychology's understanding of the unconscious, defense mechanisms, and particularly Jung's concept of the shadow self so illuminating and helpful. On the other hand, I feel that this concept of "blind spots" got distorted and misused in the poor theology of my childhood--essentially the message was one of utter depravity, and encouraged profound mistrust of myself, while (of course) encouraging me to trust and obey the external voices of moral authority.
As an adult who has deconstructed much of that problematic 1990s evangelical theology (and also done a LOT of therapy), I still find myself working through the remnants of self-doubt and knee-jerk reactions of guilt or anxiety that seem to be leftover from this message of "you are bad and you should outsource your moral authority to an external source, because you cannot trust yourself." I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on this, how a humble attitude and curiosity about the mystery of one's self can be misused or abused to create a person who ends up estranged from and profoundly fearful of themselves. Thank you!
This piece sure got me thinking. The line you started with was “cleanse me from my hidden faults.” The text does not add “…by revealing to me all my hidden faults.” I knew a wise person who lived by the slogan: “You cannot heal what you do not acknowledge.” I get that. But it is also overwhelming. I am in charge of all the acknowledging and all the healing!? So I am going to take seriously the implied question in one of your last lines: “…if we want to bring our hidden faults into view.” No thanks. All my recognized and remembered and half-remembered faults are enough for me to pray about and process till the end of the Age. Or maybe the true path is to lean into the Mercy and keep living out the next moment and the next as the Spirit leads.
Thank you for this honest perspective. And hopeful--cleanse me from my hidden faults...leaves it up to the Spirit and not my digging into my sins. We can get caught up in looking to our sins rather than looking to Jesus.
Another great idea Freud talked a lot about is the unconscious. A lot of stuff hides in there, which makes self-examination a true challenge!
Thank you for this explanation of how a plumb bob works with regards to us. I purchased a plumb bob and it sits in my office as a reminder of this as well as all the building that takes place in scripture.
Finding hidden faults should be an exercise done regularly. That its what communion is for.
The first thing Jesus did at the last supper was to wash their feet. Then he said, As I have done for you, do for one another. He just repeated the New Commandment. Later he said, this is my body broken for you, and then he said, Do this. What could he have meant when he said, Do this? When you pass the bread, it is my body that is to be broken for others, not his. Forgive one another as have forgiven you.
Paul says that we should take communion worthily, and then goes on to explain what he meant by that. You are to examine yourself, not judge (discern) others. Look around the room. The things that bother you in others are the things you yourself are guilty of. You are looking in the mirror. This is what you look like. This is how you find your hidden sins.
Now, forgive them as you have been forgiven. That is your body being broken. Are they a thorn in your side? God's grace is sufficient, for his strength is made perfect in our weakness.
If, after you have forgiven them, you still have a problem with them, you have not taken the beam out of your own eye. Time to get another eye-examine.
This is something we do regularly, so we do not need to overwhelm ourselves trying to deal with everything at once. Deal with the little things first. You will get hang of it.
I am both a psychotherapist and post-evangelical who is still very rooted in the Christian tradition. On the one hand, I have found psychology's understanding of the unconscious, defense mechanisms, and particularly Jung's concept of the shadow self so illuminating and helpful. On the other hand, I feel that this concept of "blind spots" got distorted and misused in the poor theology of my childhood--essentially the message was one of utter depravity, and encouraged profound mistrust of myself, while (of course) encouraging me to trust and obey the external voices of moral authority.
As an adult who has deconstructed much of that problematic 1990s evangelical theology (and also done a LOT of therapy), I still find myself working through the remnants of self-doubt and knee-jerk reactions of guilt or anxiety that seem to be leftover from this message of "you are bad and you should outsource your moral authority to an external source, because you cannot trust yourself." I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on this, how a humble attitude and curiosity about the mystery of one's self can be misused or abused to create a person who ends up estranged from and profoundly fearful of themselves. Thank you!