Era Of Exposure

 

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable 

in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”

Psalm 19:14

In mid October, Gap G, Jodi and I went to Houma, Louisiana to serve with Samaritan’s Purse, where we aided in disaster relief and stayed at Covenant Church. Just like any church building, there was scripture painted or framed on the wall. Psalm 19:14 was illustrated on the beige wall in room that I slept in. 

I had never read this scripture before. I loved it! It wrote it down and thought to myself, “Yes, this is what I want to be mindful and prayerful of in my life.” Throughout the rest of my time at Samaritan’s Purse, I sung this over myself. I layered it throughout my prayers and clung to it before I spoke, I really thought that I was slamming through the spiritual realm with this grenade in my back pocket. That is, until I read the sister scriptures two verses up. Verses 12 and 13 go like this,

“Who can understand his errors? Cleanse my secret faults.

Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not 

have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless,

And I shall be innocent of great transgression.”

 

Kindly, He drew me to the encouragement of Psalm 19:14 and then gently He guided my gaze up a quarter of an inch to the scriptures that would catapult me into a season of internal honesty.

“Marissa,” He said, “Before you move forward in praying this, I want to bring somethings to your attention. You have hidden sin in your heart and I wanted to talk to you about it”

A deep repentance began regurgitate from the depths of my being. When He spoke to my heart it was as if I had began to wake up. I felt like I had been in a trance, going through the motions; Saying the right things, making the right jokes, having the right answers. I felt hungover. That was the truth that Holy Spirit was trying to reveal to me. The truth that I had become lazy in my faith, only doing the bare minimum. Having a lack of discipline in my life and allowing my flesh to rule my heart and mind in certain areas.

Over the next couple of weeks I had really honed into this Psalm. It was a personal prayer, a grueling cry of my heart. In desperation, I sat before the throne of throne of the Lord. It felt like I was turning myself in because I knew how guilty I was from trying to hide certain things from Him. The deeply embedded secrets of my heart were trying to cling to whatever they could in order to remain hidden. 

Caught off guard, the Lord broke the grip of my apathetic, pride clenching heart, with the truth of John 3:19-21

“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved

darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates

the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does

the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done

in God.”  

In the Holy Spirit I rebuked the secret sins of my life and commanded that they make themselves plain. I sat with the Lord and confessed things that I wasn’t aware of. I confessed things that were very apparent and presumptuous in my life. I had come to realize that I had been walking in habitual sin, willingly doing what was wrong and denying Christ the throne of my heart. The light Jesus was talking about, I crave living in that. I crave the beam of His glory. I don’t like to live in the dark, it’s lonely, scary and cold. But it’s so easy to retreat to a dark corner when shame has your ear. It’s easy to move in the shadows when your fearful of judgment. The reality is, the less I allow myself to be seen by Him, the more distant I become. My proximity changes with every hinderance, secret and concealment.

Now, hear me out, I’m not harboring anything harmful or detrimental to the people around me – in no way are the people of earth and on Gap G, in any danger – I’m just saying that ya girl took a good, long, hard look in the mirror and was very honest with herself. 

I think that I have reached a point in my life that I can no longer live in. Over the last couple of months, from October until now, I embarked on a journey of intentional light walking. Parts of me were hiding in the shadows; attitudes, actions, heart aches, joys, triumphs and shortcomings. I can’t live like that anymore, I refuse. I will not waste another day, year or decade of my life fooling myself into thinking that I really follow Christ because of the way that I behave.

I’m stepping into a new era. The Era of Exposure; Where I live my life in transparency, humility, consistency and integrity. My prayer is that I be more deliberate about my pursuit of Christ, making it a morning and evening priority, not just a supplement to my day. That I would be disciplined in taking better care of my physical and spiritual health. These things can’t be summed up as goals, they have to be purposeful life skills that continue to flourish throughout all seasons. 

This has to happen, my soul depends on Him and choking it out in laziness or halfhearted submission, convenient obedience, is a dangerous shadow to live in. How can, 

“the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable 

in Your sight”

If I’m never walking in it? Of course the Lord always see’s me, what I’m saying is, if I am not baring myself before the Lord how can the words of my mouth and meditation of my heart be acceptable in His sight, if I am always hiding? Ya know?

Thank You God, for redeeming my laziness with empowerment. Thank You God, for continually allowing me to safely walk in the exposure of your glory. Thank you God, for Your mercy, grace, longsuffering and attentive gaze. Thank You God, for making freedom a Name call away. Although, I know I will fall short of your glory in this pursuit of sanctification you will still lift my head and spur me on.