Essential Embarrassment
“Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done?
They certainly were not ashamed, and they did not know how to blush;” Jeremiah 8:12 NASB
Blush – Why don’t we know how to blush? Actually, I’m afraid we do know the feeling. We just suppress it in order to pursue the yetzer ha’ra. But blush we must if God is going to turn us around. It doesn’t take much practice. In fact, it takes no practice at all. Blushing is a natural emotional response associated with embarrassment, the experience of awkward self-consciousness in a moment of culturally conditioned shame. Someone who has no ability to blush is someone who does not share the same social fabric. From the perspective of the Bible, this is someone who has numbed himself to Torah conflict. It is the equivalent of offering your Jewish guests shrimp cocktail before dinner and then realizing what a fool you just made of yourself.
When Jeremiah employs the expression, he has something more in mind than social faux pas. “kālam denotes the sense of disgrace which attends public humiliation. In thirty cases the root is used in parallel with bôš ‘to be ashamed’ (q.v.). Any distinction between the meanings of the two roots is therefore small. However, when kālam appears by itself it does not often have the idea of disgrace which comes through a failed trust (a prominent element in bôš). Rather it is a more general disgrace resulting from any kind of humiliation. The fact that the Arabic cognate means ‘to wound’ suggests the idea of a ‘wounded’ pride.”[1]
Do you know what else it suggests? A wounded God. When we no longer blush (kalam) from our transgressions, we wound God. He designed an automatic emotional early warning system in the cultural training of Torah. Blush is essential embarrassment. That little shot of adrenaline, that moment of blood rush to the surface of the face, that instantaneous pang of potential humiliation—these are designed to alert you to overstepping the cultural boundaries in a Torah observant society.
Of course, when you don’t live in a Torah observant society your blush factor is reduced sometimes to insignificance. You feel nothing, and as a result, you continue in the behavior that will some day cause you enormous regret, shame and remorse. What can you do now in Babylon to hone the blush reaction? You can tune your consciousness to the feelings of YHVH. You can ask, “Would this wound God?” before you act. That might not be enough given the prior training you accepted as a student of Babylon, but it is a start. You can read the Bible for its emotional conditioning about the heart of God. You can ask Him to let you feel what He feels. And you can refuse to push aside the blush when it comes. It’s there for your benefit. At last, a useful hot flash. Day 7.
Topical Index: blush, kalam, humiliation, wound, Jeremiah 8:12
[1] Oswalt, J. N. (1999). 987 כָלַם. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (443). Chicago: Moody Press.
I have found (to my extreme embarrassment) that shame is hardwired, but, like any component of the yetzer ha-ra it can be re-directed, re-programmed, overwritten, perverted, or paved over. Embarrassment is composed of magnetic elements, and it can be polarized to ANYTHING that I have determined to be a ruler over me. The Cross is a source of shame for me; I am furiously, overwhelmingly embarrassed before the Throne and before the universe that it has happened because of me. It is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me, and I would have it so for all eternity. When I choose to have This Man to rule over me, I accept the shame of that Cross as mine. To not confess my sin is to deny it, however. The Cross does not bother me as long as I am not sorry!
When I am magnetized to the god of this world, however, I have polarized myself to its rule. Self wants to have all the results of love, but it wants them from another source. Self wants the approbation of others, but Self wants that more than it wants the approbation of G-d. Fear of man is the deepest, most pervasive fear we have (no, sorry spiders, you can only scare us; you cannot make us embarrassed!). When I suffered from that fear, anything that I did (or did not do), I automatically calculated against the potential fear factor of What Would Others Think. Now, like breathing or not stepping out in front of trucks, that is not a bad thing. We were made to care about what others think! Where the problem comes in for me is when I make a decision that what others think is MORE IMPORTANT than what G-d thinks. At that point, I have established another god. Saul gave Samuel an excuse when Samuel found out that he had not completely obeyed the instructions he had been given after he had won the victory over the Amelekites. Saul said “I feared the people”. Now, to me, that was Saul’s sin. He put the opinion of others above the plain instructions of YHVH.
Sadly, I find that my ability to be ashamed can be perverted; it can be used to make me sin; it can also hold me in bondage after I have sinned, too. Embarrassment is a flesh response, and, like all other flesh responses, is not safe for me until I have handed it over to be redeemed; transformed and brought under subjection to Yeshua, and specifically, to Him on that Cross. The Cross has to be more embarrassing to me than anybody or anything else in this world. I have to be conformed to where I am with my Saviour up and above where I am conformed to where I am at with anybody else. They did not die to save me from death, so I must not allow Fear of Others to kill me with embarrassment UNLESS I have run my sin through the filter of the Law Giver hanging there for me, first. I have learned this to my sorrow. I cannot confess my sin, my transgression of His Law, to others, TO KEEP FROM confessing it to Him. When I do confess to Him, first; then, and only then, is it safe to blush in front of others!
Evil controls vast numbers of people through Fear of Man. We are warned of this in Proverbs 29:25, where the snare that the fear of man brings is contrasted with the trust we should have put in the Lord instead. I used that unqualified trust in others as a guide in the places I was not putting my trust in Him. Invariably, I would find myself in compromising positions, crawling with embarrassment; fractured and framed. Snared. One of the funniest examples of what that snare can look like is where, in Matt. 21, Yeshua’s authority was being questioned. The chief priests and elders, in fact were trying to embarrass Him. They assumed He suffered from the Fear of Man, like they did, but He, knowing that they did, turned it around and asked them about whether they thought the baptism of John was from heaven, or of men. It is telling that they did not say it was of men because they FEARED THE PEOPLE.
Paul asks in Gal. 1:6 “…do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.” Heb. 13:5, 6 gives me the most definitive understanding of what order of operations I should establish in my life. The writer quotes “…”I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee (the basis for my trust in Him).” So that we may BOLDLY SAY, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”
When I repented for Fear of Man (and that included fear of my own opinion, too!) as the idolatry that it is, and submitted myself back to G-d as the only Source for my trust, I found I received an amazing gift in return. I found that I was then free to blush for all the right reasons! No longer bound by shame and frozen by fear, I was free to be humble, and free to admit my mistakes without dying on the spot! (Still learning this, y’all!) I have discovered that I can apologize without making others uncomfortable from this place, but, best of all, the evil in others can no longer control me in my shame! What a bonus! Free to blush! Who knew I had to be delivered to do that, too! When I am obedient and put ALL THINGS under subjection to Yeshua, including what my reaction is to what others may think of me, I am free from their sin as well as mine. Then, and only then, do I find that shame works for me, instead of against me! Halleluah!
Laurita, – such an excellent response, and such a liberated perspective!! – Oh, the power of the cross!
~ and if the Son (the Word of God incarnate) shall set you free, —you (Laurita) will be free indeed!~
“When I am obedient and put ALL THINGS under subjection to Yeshua, including what my reaction is to what others may think of me, I am free from their sin as well as mine.”
I love this statement Laurita. I believe it perfectly describes our relationship to the Messiah/King! It is a sting to those of us who were weaned on the “Jesus paid it all” therefore I don’t have to obey paradigm. I think most on here are past that but your statement wraps it up nicely.
Well said Laurita.
Today I created my 30 day folder that will house Skip’s 30 days of “eat[ing] what we have sown so that we can reap what only God has planted.”
Somehow I sense this will take me more than 30 days.
These days I am in the food business. As I’ve studied and learned my trade I have come to look at food a little differently as of late. It seems our U.S. of A paradigm regarding food, um, lacks. It amazes me that we have come to accept things as “food” that are only either one molecule away from being plastic or more addictive than cocaine, that is, sugar – the major catalyst of fat and disease these days!
The food industry in this country certainly isn’t engaged in feeding us, it seems, but only to profit off of as many ways to shape, form, and mold things out of high fructose corn syrup, which translates in Hebrew (I’m sure of it!) as “white death,” i.e. sugar.
I am reminded how we have largely discarded Torah’s definition of what constitutes “food” and have recklessly sped down death’s highway toward so many diseases via a substitute definition of “food” as defined by the food industry that dominates our country. The result? Obesity at it’s finest hour in every shape, form and disease: cancer, diabetes, heart disease to name the big three.
Interestingly, it is now proven that more disease and death is caused EACH year from what we eat as “food” than from cigarette smoking! Mind boggling.
Summarily, I have started on this journey of being disgusted as to what I feed my body by only eating all natural foods as much as possible. Now I want to jump on the bandwagon with Skip to learn to be disgusted with what I have sown previously such that I will choose to walk in only those things that will delight YHWH rather than sicken him.
First-Laurita-so well spoken sister and so much my own heart. I find myself simply reading and learning from Skip and your posts these recent days. So much to ponder about my very fabric of being!
Second-Michael C-yes the so-called food industry is a nightmare. I can’t help but think if more people observed Torah and in particular the writings about what constitutes food, it may well be a different story.
But then again, profit (love of money) abounds here and in some other mega industries in this country. Those at the top are whoring after their own gods of money, power and prestige. They seek to control everyone down stream from them. They seek to take away our choices and make us worship them for their knowledge. A horrifying paradigm for sure.
I am there with you in having learned a long time ago about the abominations within the so-called food industry. White death is appropriate for white sugar and all it’s derivatives. We are a sick, unhealthy nation with no idea how to truly take care of ourselves.
I believe it all starts with the question….”whom do you serve?”