The Heart That Hides

Awhile back I mentioned that I wanted to do a series of posts on my favourite quotes from one of my favourite books, Stepping Heavenward. You can see the first post here. Well it's been some time, but here's another one. On the second page of the novel, young Katie is heading downstairs to enjoy her birthday breakfast with her family and she arrives a bit late. I'll include the whole scenario to give you the full effect!

"....I was quite startled to hear the bell ring for prayers. I jumped up in a great flurry and dressed as quickly as I could. Everything conspired together to plague me. I could not find a clean collar or a hankerchief. It is always just so. Mother is forever poking my things into out-of-the-way places! When at last I went down, they were all at breakfast.
"I hoped you would celebrate your birthday, dear, by coming down in good season," said Mother.
I do hate to be found fault with, so I fired up in an instant.
"If people hide my things so that I can't find them, of course I have to be late," I said. And I think I said it in a very cross way, for Mother sighed a little."

Well this scene is one that I can imagine quite vividly, for I have experienced and responded this way not a few times in my life! A frustrating situation, wounded pride, and an unbridled tongue are definitely things that I am well acquainted with. Now I must confess that this dramatic scenario usually gives me a good chuckle when I read it, but I wanted to think through the heart condition in such a phrase as "I do hate to be found fault with."

We all hate to have faults, let alone have them discovered. Lately, I've been pondering the reasons that we may hate having our faults made known to us. To clarify, I wanted to use this to discuss the presence and exposure of sin in our lives rather than ambiguous "faults," but I figured this quote was an adequate springboard.

So, in one sense, it may be because we are truly and righteously grieving over the sin that we see still remains in us. It may be because we do not want our sin to reflect poorly on the gospel, and thus be a bad Christian witness. It may be because the person that corrects or admonishes us, is not doing so in love, but rather mean-spiritedly.

Quite sadly, I know that in the majority of situations, my desire to not be found fault with does not stem from pure motives, but rather from a proud heart. Being found fault with does not exactly facilitate a desire to be esteemed. Faults reflect poorly on me.

How do you feel or react, Christian, when someone sees your sin and offers correction or instruction? Would you rather have it concealed, so that you will be thought of more highly? Do you get defensive? Do you look for sins in the "faultfinder," so that you can discredit what they have said? Or do you honestly examine your own heart, to determine if in fact there may be sin present?

Or do you long to know of your sins and have them exposed, that you might be able to put them to death?

I think that our response and reaction to being "found fault with," really exposes the way we view our sin. Do we hate it? Or do we hate how it makes us look?

If we truly hate our sin, if we remember that Christ suffered and endured the wrath of God for it, we will not care that others might think less of us, but our first and utmost concern will be that this sin that remains in us would be mortified! We will long for Christ's glory, and we will know that he is most glorified when we are killing sin and are becoming more like him.

I don't think we are necessarily accustomed to this type of thing in our relationships but I know that I want to be the type of Christian that welcomes the exhortation and admonishment from other sisters/brothers. I want fellow saints to feel that I would welcome their instruction or reproof, despite the immediate discomfort I will most likely experience. What about you? Would your closest friends be comfortable approaching you if they saw sin in your life? Do you want them to be?

Now, obviously this post can go on for awhile, and deal with many other issues surrounding this sort of thing... how we approach someone about sin, what if a person is wrong when they approach me about sin, etc. However, for this post, I just wanted to look at a heart that hates "to be found fault with," because I know that so often this is my heart. May God change my heart, for my good and his glory!

Proverbs 9:7-12 Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.