Hidden Things?

"It's the most important thing you'll do."  My quilter friend gives me this advice often.  It's why I clip my threads as I go (because I really hate spending a long period of time clipping at the end of my project) and why I make sure my seams are pressed the right way.  Threads and seams are hidden on the inside but my quilt adviser has taught me that what is hidden will affect the final product.  If I do not adhere to clipping the threads and repairing seams pressed the wrong way there will be consequences in the finished quilt.

In Deuteronomy 22: 13-30 God gives the Israelites His expectations for intimate matters.   There are several scenarios:  a man may not be satisfied with his wife and think by slandering her he can get rid of her; a woman might be found to be impure and think she can hide it but there are serious consequences for infidelity; a man and woman married to another may be found sleeping together and both must die; a man might think since he is in another town he could sleep with an engaged woman but he will face the sentence of death and she will too if she consented; a man may take advantage of a girl who is not engaged to be married but he will end up paying 50 silver shekels and have her as his wife for life; a man can not marry his father's wife.

Today's society teaches us that we have freedom in our private and personal lives.  Yet these verses teach that even in the most intimate relationships purity is what God expects.  What we do in our private and personal life will affect our relationships with others and our relationship with God.

God has a high standard for purity.  These verses detail several situations and the consequences. At first read I think the situations sound like a soap opera.  Sadly, if I think, I probably can recall real people that have gotten themselves into similar situations.

These verses do not give the loopholes our society tries to manufacture.  God gives serious and often deadly consequences for these situations and some of them are public, with the town elders and community administering the  penalty.  There is a recurring statement, "You must purge the evil from among you."

In today's world, impurity is too often treated as common place.  Yet God expects us to be  pure, especially in our most intimate matters.  These verses remind me that what I do in private will affect my public life as well as those in my family and the community.  What is hidden does matter to the community.

Today I am grateful that God gives and expects the best from me.  He also knows me and knows I might  fail in my efforts to be pure.  He loves me and gave His own Son to be the sacrifice so I could have forgiveness.

Just as I rip open a seam that goes the wrong way and make it right, I go to God when I know I've gone the wrong way and His forgiveness will make it right with our relationship.