How you doing with that?
Honestly...
Can you raise your hand that you've actually accomplished it?
Me neither.
I was bored once.
I wound up drawing stripes on my shirt in a self portrait for the school psychologist and colored in bars, in front of me. I didn't like being ignored and bored, even in the fifth grade, and instinctively knew how to mess with the shrinks head...
I think I shared that before...
It worked well. He didn't know whether to wind his watch or have me committed. The choice became remarkably easier when I laughed and told him he should have known better... I was only joking, my dear...
At work once, I was put in the tool cage, signing parts out to the other mechanics. Bored, I took pipe fittings, assorted springs and filed down thoriated tungsten from the Tig welding kit and began assembling a " zip" gun. My boss turned the corner, looked at the pieces laid out along the desk, with the ram set 22 loads I'd taken from the fastening system we used to secure electrical boxes thru 1/2" steel, and nearly had a coronary, on the spot...
Needles to say, that was the last time I ever got cage duty...
Bored and alone, historically does not usually precede my finest hours...
In a matter of days, I will be getting surgery on my shoulder. The funny thing is, this is the first injury in my life that I didn't directly cause by my own innatentivity or stupidity.
Now that is a strange feeling. Every scar, every broken bone and lingering ache and pain, until this very moment in time, can all be directly correlated to crazy dares and reckless boredom.
All of them.
100%.
Absolutely no variation from that pattern...
Not this one...
In a few days, I will be extremely limited in some of my physical capabilities. There will be large sections of time that I will be alone in my house, for the next few months...
Bored and alone...
The problem with all that is that I still struggle with porn.
Not always, not often, but still...
I think I've shared that once or twice before, in the past...
That is my stigma.
And bored and alone are my triggers....
I'm sort of terrified...
I meet with people who I share progress and failure; I've met with Pastors both alone and with my Wonderful Wife dealing with this exact issue, over the past decade...
Shared about it in appropriate small groups and weekend men's advances.
I pray, and try to set up situations that will allow me to remain successful in my attempt to not be tempted...
I repent, study Gods word, turn away and double down all efforts, but not being Gods only Perfect Son, I eventually fail.
My volition is not sufficient....
So I relate to some of those other pariahs, that are not able to shake their personal demons completely and are experiencing one ( or more) of those quiet, corporately stigmatized sin...
I would hit The Staples EASY button any day of the week, to be rid of it...
I doubt I'm alone or unique in that.
If Jesus chose to throw that stone, that day, long ago, I can guarantee you that he would still be throwing them today, and not one of us, would he miss...
It's funny how Christians deal with other people's sins.
We sit around in discussion groups reading Scriptures that leaves no possible gray area about the impossibility of God being able to see difference in sin; that they are all equal in His eyes...
Our best works, our best behaviors are dirty rags, in His sight...
But the fact is, most of that is pure lip service.
Theoretically it is believed, but watch one person openly struggle and fail, try and fail again with one of those " stigmatized" sins and observe the looks in the eyes of those failing in other more respectable areas, standing righteous in their ignorance...
I'm getting into trouble on this one.....
But let's for this one moment in time, get off our lofty clouded perches and acknowledge the difference in reactions congregations have to someone " fudging" their taxes or indulging in a little too many holiday cookies, or a few too much " Christmas cheer", from stigmatized, darker sins like homosexuality, adultery, pre marital sex and porn.
Not a complete list, by far...
Please be honest on this one.
Please...
I have yet to see anyone lose Church membership for unrepentant and repeated gluttony binges. I have yet to witness members who cannot permanently drop the spirit of self righteousness, expelled...
But sexual sins, they are different, especially when publicly known.
Heaven forbid if Christians struggle with sexual sin and people find out...
So we corporately reinforce the stigmas...
Then wonder why no one is forthcoming in repentance...
I think about the stigmas Christ dealt with.
Adulterers, caught in the act, breaking both God and mans law, fully deserving justice.
Touching lepers and unclean, healing on the Sabbath and purposely and unapologetically ignoring kosher requirements, inspired by God...
It's not what goes into the mouth that makes us unclean...
What comes out though, does that just fine.
He was not threatened by " stigma", He knew along with everything else, he had power over that, too...
By making us new creatures in Christ, he removed all stigma, as He made us white as snow, knowing full well our incapability to keep ourselves clean and our inborn propensity to fall back, into sin.
His Blood, His Empty Tomb were and are the only answer. Not by removing our past, present and future sins, but by paying for them all, in full...
Stigma is a human foible.
We either break it privately and corporately or we enforce it...
Choose one.
We must address sin in ourselves and each other.
That is a given...
But just as we can't pick and choose what Words of God we want to follow, we cannot add more bias or punishment to sins we are personally not fond of...
We will though, because we do.
No matter what we say, what often exits the heart is
" Let our will be done"...
When we treat sins differently, that is exactly our prayer...
