When Cheeks Don’t Blush

As our girls admired the picture of their freshly-born baby cousin, our oldest says:

-Mommy, our baby cousin looks like Gracie when she was born, and like Chloe, and like Zoe, and like Ellie, and like…

I stopped possibly a very long upcoming list as they’ve seen lots of red-faced babies. Yet, she  goes on to state rhetorically as if she figured out the puzzle:

-Are they blushing ’cause they’re shy…?!

Her answer was way cuter than my explanation would have been. She said that because in a previous conversation she asked me if she, herself, was born in pajamas? To which I said “No, sweetheart”. She continued “Mommy, we must have had at least undies, right?”, “Nope, not even those.” I replied bursting her childish- naive bubble.

“Oh my, that’s embarrassing.” reacted my daughter.

You’d think it would be.

The Bible says that naked we came, naked we’re leaving this earth. Yet, we cling so ever tightly on HERE and NOW creating our little kingdom with our own gods on this tiny ball of dirt and water we call home.

Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, was set aside to declare how much God detests a divided heart. He is there to pronounce God’s wrath to a stubborn nation who worships foreign gods.

God’s message to them: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” Jeremiah 2:13 

The broken-leaking cisterns are the gods they had chosen to prioritize and trust.

“They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’
    and to stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
They have turned their backs to me
    and not their faces;
yet when they are in trouble, they say,
    ‘Come and save us!’
Where then are the gods you made for yourselves?
    Let them come if they can save you
    when you are in trouble!
For you, Judah, have as many gods
    as you have towns.”

Judah doesn’t want to respond to love, warning, grace, correction, none of them. Judah is in denial and gets sent into captivity for this specific reason.

“To whom can I speak and give warning?
    Who will listen to me?
Their ears are closed
    so they cannot hear.
The word of the Lord is offensive to them;
    they find no pleasure in it.” Jeremiah 6: 10

“Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct?
    No, they have no shame at all;
    they do not even know how to blush.” Jeremiah 6: 15

Idols of the heart is a really serious matter. God takes it personal, when we push Him to the corners of the heart to shove in all our own gods: career, family, money, lust, title, power, man appreciation, peace at all cost, technology, social media, addictions, false hope etc. 

Maybe we don’t carve a foreign god, or raise a golden cow, but we all have seasonal idols of the heart.

Whatever good gift from above we are entrusted with to enjoy life and to bring glory to God we need to watch out not to turn it into an idol of the heart.

God gives us people to do life with, yet we elevate them on a very insecure pedestal.

God enables us to get schooled and equipped for a job, yet we turn knowledge into arrogance.

God supplies all our needs, yet we turn provisions into materialism.

God entrusts us with talents to use for His glory, yet we turn abilities into an endless pursuit of fame.

God encourages us to have peace as much as it depends on us, yet we settle for peace at any cost.

We may not go to Babylon as the Israelites did, but when our hearts are worshipping other gods, broken cisterns that leak, we are in bondage.

We are captive to limited joy based on circumstances.

We are captive to limited love based on who loves us.

We are captive to limited peace based on seasons of normalcy of life.

We are captive to limited hope based on our mood.

We are captive to sin, pushing God further away… YET we expect our prayers to be heard, and our lives to be showered with heavenly blessings.

Sure,  a baby doesn’t blush when it is born without PJ’s.

• The question is, do we blush to sin, or do we choose to live in ignorance?
• Are we offended by God’s Word?
• Are we heartbroken when we replace God with an idol of the heart?

God doesn’t desire a shattered heart, each piece mirroring a different god. God, the spring of living water, is jealous for us.

As Easter is around the corner, let’s do a spring cleaning in our heart. Let’s stop putting our trust in those “leaking cisterns”, and let’s focus on how much Jesus deserves our undivided heart… in the end Easter reminds us He earned the right. 

God desires “singleness of heart and action”.  (Jeremiah 32:39)

Read and meditate: Psalm 16:4-8