No Pity Party Allowed!

Many moons ago in central Mexico—though I’m sure things have changed there in this respect, just as they have here in the good old USA—an elementary teacher gave me a sure-fire tip on how to control rambunctious boys: pull the hair at their temples. “That’s where they are the most sensitive and, believe you me, one pull and they’ll lay down like the proverbial lamb.”

Before you judge that teacher too harshly, especially you younger people who missed the era of spanking in the classroom (not that it hurt us who lived through it—no mass shootings in schools in those days!), I think an awareness of her circumstances might render you a little more merciful in critiquing her. Aside from not having all the teaching tools the modern educator takes for granted (white boards, computers, projectors that connect with the computer, iPads, etc.) she had over sixty students in her class—par for the course at that time in the capital of Mexico. Not to mention: no instructional aide!

Although I never resorted to that methodology, I know a divine Teacher Who does. None other than The Big Guy Himself.

I was reminded of that recently one delicious afternoon when my friends and I were discussing things of God over Sunday lunch. Talking with like-minded friends about God—it doesn’t get any better than that! Anyway, I was blown away when a much younger friend mentioned that God had pulled her up short (as in: no pity party for you, girl—buck up!), a spiritual hair pulling, if you will, like my teacher friend from down Mexico way.

Her confession made my day—I guess I’d been guilty of thinking I had been the only recipient of God’s hair pulling! I can give you several examples, one of which stems from my being slighted.

After the incident that devastated me, I poured out my heart to the Lord. “God,” I said, “You know I am in the right! This isn’t fair!”

I expected a commiserating pat on the back and a kindly grandfather voice saying, “Poor baby, them people are so mean! You are just a sweet, precious little pumpkin seed! How dare those dastardly people treat my sweet little baby so!”

That’s what I expected. What I got was—a none-too-gentle tug on ye olde temple hair and a, ”Quit your caterwauling, girl. Remember Joseph’s brothers? If anyone had a just cause for resentment, they did. Their father made no bones over his preference for Rachel and her boys—but look where it took them. You might be in the right, but to hang on to the 'right' to feel sorry for yourself will not only lead you down a path that will lead to misery, it is just plain wrong!”

Ouch! Instead of a loving pat, a yank of the hair!

Hmm … as I heard Dr. Oscar Brooks recently point out, in Zachariah 1:20-21 the Lord sent carpenters to administer His judgement on the nations that had afflicted Israel. Wait—aren’t carpenters supposed to build? Yes, but in God’s economy, before building up, something critical must happen first: all that is anti-God and against His principles must be taken down, destroyed, demolished, done away with. Only then can building take place. Same for His temple in the modern church age—that is to say, our selves (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Look at Moses. Even back in those BC days He had to be isolated in the desert 40 years before being useful to God. All the self that defined him had to be whittled away. Only then was he in a place where he could be used as the spokesman and leader God wanted.

After his conversion, Saul of Tarsus spent some three years in the desert, learning about his new-found faith at the feet of the Master (Galatians 1:11-20). All his preconceived ideology had to fall by the wayside before he was fit to be the purveyor of the Gospel God had called him to be.

So don’t be surprised at a hair yank! Before you can be all God has called you to be, a necessary doing away with the old is in order. He knows what needs to be taken care of in your heart in order to let the fullness of His glory, His will for your life, take place.

Let the hair pulling begin!

“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth,” (Hebrews 12:6).

“Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Hebrews 12:11).