Monday, February 21, 2011
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We have five members of the Hutchcraft family. Actually at one time, there was a sixth unofficial member of the family - our parrot, Pierre. Now, my 14-year-old son took care of him, and he had a problem. See, Pierre needed a bath. He really needed a bath. And our method of giving him a bath is to put him in the tub. Now, I don't know if this is conventional or not, but we put him in the tub and he would really love the shower...sort of like the Amazon jungle where his roots are - a rain forest I guess.
Well, it's kind of funny seeing a little parrot walking around in a bathtub with the shower on, but it worked. And he usually wanted to get in there. But all the things that usually worked, weren't working this one day.
Now, he needed a shower. I can't believe we're talking about a parrot needing a shower, but we are. Okay, he needed a shower, and the sound of it didn't do it. Well, we thought, "Well, he'll hear the shower, and he'll want to go." Didn't work. We had his cage door open; we were waiting for him to step out. He didn't step out. And we put a stick up at the door for him to step onto. He didn't step onto the stick. Then we put the stick in the cage, and he wouldn't get on it...right under his feet! We used banana bait, and that didn't work. This was turning out to be harder than getting a 12-year-old boy to take a shower - getting a parrot in there.
Well, finally, our son resorted to the one tactic that would get Pierre clean. He picked up the whole cage and set it in the tub. Pierre's still in the cage, and he turned on the shower. Pierre got clean! He loved it! He started to talk - he looked, and smelled, and felt better afterwards. But we had to move his whole world to get him clean.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why Your Cage is Shaking."
Our word for today from the Word of God is found is Psalm 32. Now, David is facing intense physical and emotional problems. But he's surprised to find out why. "Blessed is he," says David, "whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him, and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept silent (that is, about his sin) my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. And then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord' and You forgave the guilt of my sin."
David is saying here that he had sin that he wouldn't deal with, so God literally had to shake everything around him to get him clean. Sounds like a parrot I know. Literally, He lifted up his cage and said, "I'm going to have to shake your whole world, David, to get you clean." And David describes the fact that he was out of strength, he was in pain, his life was frustrating.
Could that be a mirror of what's going on in your life right now? For some reason, maybe a lot of things are coming unglued right now. All of a sudden you've got pressure from all directions, and things you usually could count on aren't working. Your whole environment's moving. Sometimes God is simply trying to get your attention; trying to get you to face a sin that needs cleaning. A sin you've been covering. You've been postponing dealing with it. He's trying to get you to quit postponing a spiritual shower any longer. It's time to abandon the cover-up and begin the clean-up. Things will not get better until you do. Your problem may not be what it appears to be at all. Maybe that's just the symptom. The problem may be sin that has not been confessed; not repented of; not cleaned up.
And I'm telling you, God will move your whole environment if that's what it takes for you to be clean again with Him. Maybe that's why your cage is shaking.