The Making Of A Slimy Christian

As Ginny and I drove back from our vacation Monday, I fell ill.

In fact it briefly crossed my mind to ask her to drive me to straight to the hospital emergency room; but being the ornery cuss that I am, I invoked the medical insurance policy of the poor which I’ve lived with most of my life — the name of that policy is “Get Well Or Die”.

So I toughed it out on my own and eventually got well.

Must not have been anything serious; I got well.

I got well but I imagine she’s sick of nursing a grouch.

I do not make a good patient.

I still feel a bit lethargic but now I’m functioning more or less.

Of course, feeling poorly makes me think we need another vacation, but that is not to be. Not for a couple of months yet.

Before we left for the Gulf Coast, I cleaned our swimming pool, brushed the sides, changed the filter, added chemicals. The water looked pristine.

Five days later, I walked outside to find the pool slimy green with algae.

What happened?

Apparently, in cleaning, I’d missed some little something, some tiny green spot that should have been killed off, and it spread infecting the whole pool.

Seeing the slime and realizing what had happened, reminded me of a puzzling aspect of the Bible’s historical books that I’ve been reading while on vacation — the whole concept of Devoted.

In Hebrew usage to devote means to utterly destroy, to annihilate.

The concept is not uncommon in the books of Joshua and Judges; I ran across this term again in First Samuel where the prophet said to King Saul,

“Hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts… Go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling babe, ox and sheep and camel and ass”.

No loot was to be taken. Cloth and wooden items were to be burned. Pottery smashed. Metal objects belonging to the enemy was to be twisted, crushed and left on the site of the city. Nothing, not one thing, was to be saved over for use by the Israelites.

The term for this type of warfare was “devote to God”.

Saul disobeyed.

Perhaps, he fancied himself more merciful than God. Perhaps the waste of good stuff appalled him. Maybe he was greedy for gain. Whatever, he kept the enemy king alive as well as the best of the livestock.

“But everything that was vile and refuse, that they utterly destroyed”.

They destroyed useless trash but kept the good stuff.

When the prophet met King Saul on his return from the battle, he said, “What meaneth this bleating of sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?”

Saul claimed that he was not to blame but the people saved the spoils of war.

He also claimed that the livestock had been saved to sacrifice to the Lord.

The prophet said, “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

“Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…”

The story goes on to tell how that incident resulted in Saul’s losing the kingdom

When I pick some little something to offer God, the choice, great or small, is mine; when I obey, the choice of what and when and where is His.

My choice often picks trash, something that costs me nothing just as Amalek’s sheep and oxen cost Saul nothing. In asking my obedience, God zeros in on something which if left alone will corrupt me and cause me greater pain — yet something I cling to.

Like slick green algae on a pool side, I cling.

When I chose, my choice enhances my reputation. When God chooses, the choice advances His kingdom.

So, like Saul (one of the biblical characters I most identify with) I obey part-way.

I make a move in the direction of obedience. A gesture toward the Lord.

But I hold back my own version of a few sheep and ox, and maybe I keep an enemy king (or a few photos of naked internate ladies, or a few cherished prejudices, or a coal of bitterness) alive for ransom and future use.

Like algae in my pool, like the pagan nations the Israelites were supposed to utterly destroy on numerous occasions, the tiny bit I hold back grows and spreads and infects and corrupts.

This results in my being a slimy Christian.

Murky.

Off-color.

Unsightly and unhealthy.

And yet I like to think of myself as a devoted man, totally at the disposal of Jesus Christ.

You know, the one who said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments”.

And it’s not a matter of His asking some difficult thing of me. He said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest”.

His yoke is easy and His burden light.

Yet I balk at obedience.

I have a better idea.

But I still want to appear to other people as righteous.

What hypocrisy!

Samuel said, “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry”.

So, where does that leave me?

I’ve heard becoming a Christian described as saying one big Yes followed by a lot of little yeses.

Saint Paul describes this in those painful chapters in Romans (7 & 8, chapters I puzzle over often). He said, “The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God”.

Yes, Christ died for our sin, the Just for the unjust that He might bring us to God.

That’s the joy and the glory.

I still must fight the algae.

That’s daily life.

As Paul said, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that love us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life… nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.