What taints our thanks.

What is that smell?

The kids and I climbed in the car for church, five minutes late as usual, and the odor was nauseating. What was that? I’d noticed a little smell the days before, but we don’t drive much, so it’d been a few days and it was most definitely worse. What could it be? 

I leaned in to buckle Heid’s seatbelt and glanced over her seat into the back of the car.

No. Oh no. 

A two-pound package of ground beef, wrapped in paper not plastic, was wedged in the back of the car next to a bag of giveaway toys. I could see blood had oozed out all over the carpet and soaked the bottom of the bag.

No. I wonder how long …

I thought back. I had got it from my parents’ house since they store my beef supply in their garage freezer — so it must have been …

a week. A WEEK this meat had been rotting, blood oozing down between the folded down seats, soaking the bag of toys.

This was three weeks ago — needless to say we’ve been working on it ever since.

I wish my car was the only thing that smelled.  Since we’re heralding honesty around here, I had to say my life has smelled a bit as well.  I kept noticing it, a little odor here and there. But this last week I found the rancid meat and could finally see how it seeped into everything around.

Pride.

Perhaps that word has lost its punch — we use it a lot. But it’s the only one that will do because it’s the one God uses and it’s the only one that truly accurately describes the rancid meat I too often discover wedged into some corner of my life, making the whole thing smell.

Yesterday I listened as Jeff counseled someone over the phone. He said this,

“We say someone hurt our “feelings” but the truth is that feelings are just feelings, they can’t be hurt. What we really mean is that someone hurt our ego. Egos can be injured … they are all the time.”

Aha. That was it. Like a glance into the backseat, I’d found my meat. 

Ego. It makes everything stink. It repulses others, pushes them away, repels God, keeps at arm’s length. And, the kicker:

It taints our thanks. 

Consider the proud Pharisee’s prayer in Luke 18:11:

The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

I’ve always read this struck by His pride, of course, but never noticed how he begins his prayer:

With thanks.

The Pharisee actually uses thanksgiving as a cloak for pride. He uses words of gratitude but all he’s really doing is boasting.

True thanksgiving is always the product of humility;  counterfeit thanksgiving is always the product of pride.

Pride, like rotten meat oozing everywhere, can taint our thanks and turn it into boasting. 

Do you see why God hates pride? Why sin ruins everything. Why egos destroy the work of God. Why self stifles our growth and sabotages the Spirit’s labor in us?

I had smelled it for a few weeks but didn’t know exactly what it was.

Now what? Praise be to God that when we name it and ditch it, God is faithful and just to forgive us. The good news is this — this horrible discovery in the back seat of my life, so to speak, has made me soul mates with the tax collector. Without thought or intention, His prayer has been mine this week:

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

Have you ever felt that way?  Where the tears stream down your face and you bury your head and plead with God, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.”

I hate finding rancid meat but would rather find it and toss it then let stay and continue to stink.

Confession is just like that. See it, pick it up, oozing blood and stinking, toss it out. Spend the next few weeks with the baking soda of God’s Spirit, letting Him deodorize and make us clean and new.

And you know what? This morning I climbed in the car.

It didn’t smell at all. 

When we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

That’s what I’m thankful for.  

{And always thankful to you for reading…}