THOSE 'SOUR' SORRYS

 My young-mother years sometimes required settling sibling disagreements. This often ended by my requiring brother and sister to apologize face-to-face in the hall between their rooms. Whatever else could be credited (certainly the Lord's help!), I'm grateful they grew up to be good friends and responsible citizens!

Spats between young children are inevitable as they learn to navigate life. What has saddened me are the apologies (of sorts) I've experienced from adults who, it seems, had too much “save face” blocking the path of genuine repentance. Their replies went like this: “Sorry I got mad at you, but I was having a bad day.” Or, “Sorry to offend you. I didn't mean to set you off.”

I call them “Sour Sorrys” and they are nothing new. One Biblical example: Saul, a tall, handsome guy who had a good start (at least from the “looks” of it) to be Israel's first king. But as his royal life softened with extra wives and servants, fame went to his head. He got so jealous of David, God's choice for the next king (instead of Saul's son), that he repeatedly sent assassins David's way. One time, he asked that they capture David alive—at home in bed--so Saul could have the honor of killing David himself!

Then Saul sent the men back to see David [after David had escaped one assassination attempt] and told them, 'Bring him up to me in his bed so that I may kill him.' (1 Samuel 19:15)

Like, how low can you go?

A little later, Saul's anger toward an elusive David caught up. One hot day, while combing the desert to find and kill David, Saul went into a cave “to relieve himself” (1 Samuel 24:3), probably meaning he needed a quick, private "rest stop" in the coolness of the cave. Saul didn't know David was in the same cave, and could have quickly killed him. Instead, David chose the higher road of not harming the king.

This is when I turn to Psalm 63, one of many that David is believed to have written during his lonely, scary time as a wilderness refugee before becoming king himself. The psalm has this preface: “A psalm of David, when he was in the desert of Judah.” As a shepherd, David knew how to survive in the parched, dirty desert without today's “cool-packs,” cell phones and camper snacks. But he also had a God who was watching him. He expressed it in this psalm:

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me....You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways....(Psalm 139:1, 3)

This psalm and the one preceding it bring me hope and comfort when I deal with those who can't say “sorry” from the heart. Who can't honestly admit, “God has shown me my sins against you” nor name at least a few of them as part of the apology. Instead, they revert to “save-face” admissions—some of which we've seen in recent high-profile crime cases.

“Sorry” has become such a feeble word. It's more than “sorry, excuse me,” like when you try to avoid smashing someone's feet or purse-slugging heads when you're moving down a row of chairs to an empty seat. For deep emotional and spiritual hurts, just saying “sorry” is like a band-aid on an open surgical wound. Old Testament Hebrew has several words for “sorry,” including one whose meaning includes the idea of sighing or breathing strongly, such as when the words one needs to say are painful to get out. That's intense “sorry.”

Sadly, when we are wronged, we won't always hear a genuine “sorry” (with sorrow, from which we get our word “sorry”) from the offender. But God knows our anxious thoughts (Psalm 139:23) and hasn't stopped His intention to “lead [us] in the way everlasting” (v. 24). And that includes resolving differences...His holy way.

BLAME THE TABLECLOTH?

It had to be the snowflake-decorated tablecloth that I put on our table after Christmas. Off went the one with little Christmas trees, on came the blue plaid snowflake one. And finally we got the winter snow that leaves life-sustaining water in our foothills and mountains. Uncountable flakes left an eight-inch blanket in our valley (more in the hills). Of course, the tablecloth had nothing to do with it, but the fresh snow always reminds me of the hymn, “Whiter Than Snow.”

How many years had I sung this in church without knowing its background?  The man who wrote its lyrics, James Nicholson, wasn’t prolific like Fanny Crosby or Charles Wesley. Just a handful of hymn lyrics came from his pen, this being the most enduring. Born in Ireland in the 1820s, he immigrated to America in the 1850s. He lived in Philadelphia where he worked as a post office clerk and was active in the work of a Methodist-Episcopal Church. He later transferred to a postal job in Washington D.C. where he was living when this hymn poem was published in 1872.

Its tune came from the pen of a bookbinder, William Fischer, who became a music teacher and song leader. Fischer also associated with the D.L.Moody/Ira Sankey campaigns, leading the 1,000-voice choir in the huge tabernacle in Philadelphia. The hymn grew in popularity with its inclusion in Gospel hymn books that grew out of the crusade ministry.

So much for history, more for inspiration. The song anchors on David’s prayer of repentance after his sin with Bathsheba: “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7).

Its opening lines should reflect the heart of anyone who is listening to the conviction of the Holy Spirit regarding sin in his or her life:  “Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole; I want thee forever to live in my soul. Break down every idol, cast out every foe. Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.”

How often have you heard someone say, “Well, nobody’s perfect,” or, “I’m not that bad a sinner”?  Yet God knows every deceitful excuse in our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9). In a little book I often re-read, The Pursuit of Holiness (NavPress, 1978), Jerry Bridges (then of The Navigators ministry) wrote (p. 74):

The heart...excuses, rationalizes, and justifies our actions. It blinds us to entire areas of sin in our lives.  It causes us to deal with sin using only halfway measures, or to think that mental assent to the Word of God is the same as obedience (James 1:22).

Not so. David’s model prayer (Psalm 139) asked God to see if there was “any hurtful way in me”—not hard for God!—and “lead me in the everlasting way” (Psalm 139:23-24).

One thing about tablecloths: sometimes they have to go in the wash. More so, the human heart.  And thus the value of “cleansing” in the Word. In my daily “devotional” visits, I always find something that applies to my life or that directs my prayers for myself and others.  “To those who have sought Thee,” the hymn concludes, “Thou never saidst, ‘No,’ Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.”

Guilt and innocence

Saved by the nose and antlers! Thanks to my husband’s fun December “décor” for our car (antlers on the windows, red nose on the front grill), we avoided a $124 fine for allegedly running a red light. When the ticket first came in the mail, we were aghast.  Neither of us could recall doing that, and the murky camera image printed on the citation wasn’t any help. Then I noticed I could go to a web site to view the official film by the traffic camera mounted above that intersection. That video showed the middle-lane car clearly running the red light. Our car (with its antlers) was legally stopped in the far right lane. Somehow, our license number was wrongly put on the citation—something I noted at the bottom of the form requesting a court appearance to dispute the ticket. I was ready to hold up the car antlers while the judge watched the video validating our innocence. I didn’t have to. A few weeks later, another note came from the court. This time it said, “File reviewed by judge.  Violation found not committed due to wrong license plate cited.  Case closed.”

A few weeks later, another “infraction” notice I questioned came in the mail.  For this I appealed to the Judge of all who warned about letting “bitter roots” take hold in our hearts (Hebrews 12:15). About fifteen years earlier, this person (then a teenager) took an innocent comment the wrong way and finally told me it still bugged them. I was unaware of this person’s negative reaction, and felt sad for how a grudge had rooted in this person’s heart. But I choose the Biblical response and wrote asking forgiveness. Soon after, I received from this person a four-page, single-spaced letter that I felt attacked my character. Seeing my tears as I began reading it, my husband said, “Let me read it.”  I replied, “If you do, you’ll think I’m a horrible person and wonder why you married me.” Reluctantly, I handed it over. He went through it, noting false and distorted statements. He pointed out words that served as clues to the writer’s own emotional state: angry, stressed, anxious, upset. “How should I respond?” I asked. “Don’t,” he said. “This could go on and on. Burn it.”

Before doing as he suggested, I read it several more times, trying to discern what message God had for me in the midst of its negatives.  I wanted the open heart of Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart...See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

 For weeks afterwards, my Bible reading led me to many verses about forgiving and bearing with others’ weaknesses.  As if to reinforce that Biblical instruction, I happened to come across this quote from Phil Yancey’s excellent book Reaching for the Invisible God  (Zondervan, 200, p. 179):
Forgive, daily, those who caused the wounds that keep you from wholeness. Increasingly, I find that our wounds are the very things God uses in his service.  By harboring blame for those who caused them, I stall the act of redemption that can give the wounds worth and value, and ultimately healing.

I’m glad I never had to go to court with our comic Christmas car décor.  But every day “court is in session” as I seek to live as a citizen of heaven. I know this: that the Judge of all who sees into our hearts weighs all the evidence, and that He is absolutely fair and merciful.

Readers: has dealing with a "bitter root" been a part of your spiritual experience?