A Man of Unclean Lips

Oh, Hypocritical Me

For a long time, I have dreading writing again, because I realized how much of what I wrote I didn’t follow. How hypocritical was it of me to write on the topic of “love” when I, myself, had failed to love others well? How could I preach “Integrity and Grace” when my private life did not display the same character as my public life, and my heart was bitter?

It’s not a distaste of the act of writing – I’ve written a lot in the past few months. It’s the fear that if I wrote it, I could no longer hide from the fact that I hadn’t been living up to what I wrote. Perhaps, I thought, if I did not write, I would have no measure to compare my life to, which would allow me to continue to live however I wanted to.

It was also the fear that admitting my own flaws, everyone would see them and know them. And while I know it’s just an insecurity, it’s an insecurity nonetheless. The song that plays in the back of my mind as I consider it is “Words Fail” from the musical Dear Evan Hansen. In it, Connor Murphy is apologizing for all the mistakes he’s made, and says,

“‘Cause what if everyone saw?
What if everyone knew?
Would they like what they saw?
Or would they hate it too?
Will I just keep on running away from what’s true?”

With those fears prevalent and endlessly circulating my mind, I refused to write, for months.

I’m still far from perfection. However, even without writing, there’s enough of a standard in my life through the Holy Bible and the counsel of friends that I still clearly see my flaws and my strengths. I know no human expects perfection of me, except myself, but myself is enough pressure.

So this is my admittance, even if just to myself, of my flaws and brokenness. I am, if you will, “Functionally Imperfect.”

“I Was Broken For You”

As I sat in church today, there was a feeling in my spirit of calling to write again. I’ve tried in these past few months, and have been unable to. And while I struggled with the call and the reasons why I did not want to heed it, I finally said, “But God, I am so broken!”

And then, with a gentle nudge, He replied, “Yes. But I was broken for you.”

I had never correlated the two. My spiritual brokenness was matched and healed through the physical and spiritual breaking of Jesus Christ. I can’t express the joy and wonder that filled my heart when I realized it.

A second thought right behind it was this: “Every scar on your arm is a scar on my back.”

It wasn’t physical scars for me, but the spiritual, mental and emotional scars of all the times I’ve been injured, whether through the actions of others or through my own harming. And it wasn’t that every time I was injured, it inflicted another pain onto Christ, it was that for every pain I have experienced, Christ has paid for the healing by his sacrifice on the cross. I may have scars – but I also have healing. I may have been hurt – but I do not need to live wounded.

We say, “We are broken,” and still God repeats back, “But I was broken for you.”

God can use all our attempts, as weak and flawed as they may be. He can also fix our flaws and mend our flaws, so we are strong.

“A Man of Unclean Lips”

In Isaiah 6:1-8 (the passage that the sermon revolved around today), Isaiah experiences God’s holy presence, and he collapses onto the ground, calling out, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips!”

God doesn’t say, “No, you’re not unclean!” But He also doesn’t say, “Yes, and that means you are unfit to enter my presence,” even though it’s true.

Instead, a seraphim (an angel) brings a flaming hot coal from the altar and touches it to Isaiah’s lips, saying, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

God cleans Isaiah of his impurity and allows him to be instated into a deeper service for God.

Now, I’m not correlating the pain and frustration of this last summer to an encounter with the Creator of the Universe, but cry is the same in my heart. I am a man of unclean lips – preaching Christ while living for self. Teaching the importance of being spiritually healthy while being spiritually sick.

I hope, as I begin to write again, that my lips and my life have been and will continue to be redeemed by the coal of God’s refining fire and grace – to burn away the impurities and to leave behind the pure gold. And as I write, I hope you’ll realize that I write first and foremost for myself – a public explanation and exploration of lessons I learn through my own private life and journal.

Healing is still happening in my life, but this, picking up the virtual pen and beginning to write again, is part of that process. I still have much ground to traverse and if you’d like, I’d love if you wandered it with me.

Not For Pity

I wanted to add that I don’t write this to garner pity or even encouragement (though encouragement is never really discouraged). I share it because I want you to understand where I’m coming from when I write, especially this fall. This is just being me honest, not seeking attention.

I realize that there will always be areas that will need growth, and that I’ll never be perfect. It just hurts sometimes when you realize how far you have to go. Anyway, I wanted to add that in as a short disclaimer of the filter that I write this through.

With this out of the way, you can expect a lot more posts coming down the pike – but I wouldn’t have been able to write any of them in good conscience without writing this.

If you have any thoughts, let me know! I’d love to talk.