“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.”
-Andre Malraux
I want you to close your eyes and imagine something (don’t actually close your eyes because then you couldn’t read my directions). Okay, eyes closed? Picture a world wherein every person you see has an antenna sticking out of our heads. Not a small antenna, like a big honker; maybe a foot long each. Everyone you see is getting their antenna caught on inconvenient objects: low hanging branches, a child’s partially-flying kite, the closing doors of a subway. What a silly picture! Add this frustrating element to our setting: everyone has a belligerent stick poking directly out of their skulls, but almost no one is willing to acknowledge its existence. Women are wearing beehive haircuts with a subtle wire poking out the top. Men are dressing their domes with Abe Lincoln top hats that don’t quite reach their hair. Some decide to lean all the way into their antenna-identity, claiming that it is the stick poking out of their brain that makes them who they are. They have all but lost an understanding of who they are because this piece of them has become the most important and sacred marker of their person. Everyone is walking through life with a mightily inconvenient and seemingly embarrassing characteristic, and no one knows how to appropriately address it.
I realize the metaphor breaks down in a multitude of directions, but this should not be that foreign of a concept to us. We live in a society that has taken God-given sexuality and attempted to redefine and reshape its intended purpose. The outcome: every single one of us has a background with adultery and lust, and most of us would like to cover it up or redefine the subject entirely. There are desires in each of us that have been fed and/or demonized, and most (if not all) of us are getting them inconveniently and painfully tangled in the wrong places. Jesus wants to form our desires; He wants to accurately define lust, show us the consequences of walking against His design and plan, and He intends to lead us into freedom. That being said, the boundaries we set up can only go so far. If we are going to live a free life like we were intended, we have to look at what we love most and redirect the loose ends toward Jesus and His Word. The desires that we feed will inevitably grow!
Read 2 Samuel 11-12 and Proverbs 6
1. What do you find yourself hiding right now? (From others, God, or yourself) What do you think hiding and covering up actually accomplishes? Why do you think lust and adultery carry so much weight for us?
2. What (if any) boundaries do you have in line to protect you from lust and adultery? How does that answer offer insight to your heart and how you prioritize your relationship with God?
3. What we feed will inevitably grow - look at your priorities, how you spend your time, money, and what your phone screen shows most... What in your heart is being fed? How has that affected your attitude towards God, others, and the rest of life?
4. What is God calling you to do this week to feed your relationship with Him? What is calling you to do to help starve sin?