Mene Mene Tekel..Have You Weighed Yourself Lately?

"Mene mene tekel upharsin" were the mysteriously-written words on the wall in Daniel 5.  Daniel interpreted them to mean doom for the kingdom of Belshazzar.  

This morning I ponder the word tekel..."you are weighed in the scales and found wanting."  I'm not one to be gloomy or self-condemning.  I'm not one to forgo God's grace in exchange for weighing my good and bad deeds on some spiritual scale.  I know I'm lost in sin but found in Christ, and my heart sings a hearty HALLELUJAH at that!

 But it's fair and reasonable to ask the question, "Am I found wanting?"  in this season of self-examination, renewed goals, and fresh accounts.  I join the psalmist in saying, "Search me, O God, and try me."   

My kids have a plastic balance scale that we used to teach the math concepts of more, less, and equal when they were preschoolers.  We moved little blocks around to teeter the scale, then held our breath until we brought it back to even.  

I've been holding my proverbial breath lately because I know I've been teckeled.  I have traded the pursuit of God for a hundred other little things that throw the balance, but in God's goodness, He calls me back, inviting me to be again like the deer, panting for the Water.  

Let the oldest saint look well to the fundamentals of his piety, for grey heads may cover black hearts: and let not the young despise the word of warning, for the greenness of youth may be joined to the rottenness of hypocrisy...By the precious blood of Christ, which was not shed to make you a hypocrite, but that sincere souls might show forth his praise, I beseech you, search and look, lest at the last it be said of you, "Mene, Mene, Tekel: thou art weighted in the balances, and art found wanting." -Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Unplowed Ground

There is was.  In black and white with the little bitty numbers on the onion skin paper.  God knocking me over the head.  Again.  

"Break up your unplowed ground."  

I mean Jeremiah had a ton to say this morning about evil and sin and mocking God.  He would never have been voted president by shaking his finger at the camera and saying, "America, you have grown fat and sleek, and your evil deeds have no limits."  Jer 5:27-28, minus "America."  

Eyeroll.  Change the channel.  Ah, there, a rerun of Friends.

But when you open the Bible with the attitude that God IS going to tell you something you NEED to hear, and that the message with supercede time and culture, then you can see truth bleeding all over the page and into the present age.  Into your life.  

"Break up your unplowed ground."  

OK, where am I hard, dense, packed down, trampled on, thorny, bristly, apathetic?  

The sharp blade severs the soil, cutting all those weedy roots woven like a tiny prison, turning up fresh loam, loosening what was tight like a gag.  But only because I consent.  Because I'm tired of claiming only the comfy parts of the Bible like blessing and unconditional love and grace, thinking I can write my songs, and homeschool my children, and make my home a haven, and serve when it is convenient.  

David Platt in Radical and Jen Hatmaker in Seven and Katie Davis in Kisses from Katie point out my unplowed ground.  What am I doing?  What am I planting?  Why is this faith of mine so easy?  What is the point of all this accumulated stuff?   Where shall I go?  How messy shall I get?  How much shall I spend?  

How bright might I shine?  

How much might grow?