Getting Down and Dirty With the Naked and Exposed

 

    So, in this post, I want to talk about how we serve a God who gets low and gets dirty.  I pray this post will encourage those who are maybe trying to help a loved one out with something and also will encourage those who are currently struggling with something or are going to....which means everyone . ;)

  First, let's talk about sickness.
In Mark 2:17 Jesus says, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (NIV)

 I wanted to begin with this Scripture because it is so encouraging to know that Jesus didn't come for the people who think they have it all together. He came for the ones who are sick. The needy. The poor. The sinners.
I believe sin is like a sickness and that all sickness is a result of sin, and I will explain why later, but with that in mind.....

     A couple months ago, I was talking to someone I love dearly about my past and current struggles.  She ended up telling me that she knew someone who was struggling with some of the same stuff that I have (and still do) and asked me how she should walk through it with her. I desperately wanted to have an answer, because Eating Disorders and self harm are hard things to deal with. But I couldn't answer it. To answer it would be to be open about how much it SUCKS to try to recover, not only for the one trying to recover, but the one trying to support the one in recovery. It's still a raw area for me to think about because it seems like it was all just yesterday, and while I will be and am open about it, it still makes me extremely nervous and is hard. It's like irritating a wound that hasn't healed completely yet.


  I have been praying about the answer to this since she asked me a while back and the first thing you have to know if you are going to try to help someone is:
  1. You can not help them. Only God can.
  Recovery from anything is impossible without the Lord. It won't happen. Ever. You can lead them to The Healer of the sick, but you yourself can do absolutely nothing. You can walk it with them, but you can't make them walk.
(I know I've said this before and I will probably say it 57035827064839587345 more times so get use to it.)
  

    Thinking back on my personal journey and the first several, several longgggggg months of my recovery, it was the hardest thing I have been through and I'm sure the hardest thing some of the people around me had been through as well. If you truly want to help someone, you are going to have to get down in the dirt with them. You're going to get messed up. You're going to get hurt and it isn't fun. You're going to doubt whether it is worth it and whether or not anything you are doing is really even doing anything at all. I don't say this to discourage anyone and to say to avoid people with problems like they are a plague; not at all. I do want people to know how hard it will be though, but that it is SO worth it.

  Okay, but why do you have to get dirty too?
Before the sickness can be healed, you have to realize there is a sickness, which is an extremely hard process for some, as it was for me. You have to dig into the problems; the messy stuff; the results of the sickness. Since my dear friend asked me that, I have been incessantly asking God what "qualified" as sick. So, I started digging into The Word to see what the Bible said was sickness and trying to study what the word itself meant. 
  The word "sick" derives from the Greek word "sickhos" which means sick; unwell; weak; or detestable.
The word detestable stood out to me the most when I read this, because if we really take that seriously and look into what the Lord says is detestable and therefore makes us sick, we are all sick. But also because the word detestable can mean dirty, abominable, ignoble, mean, nasty, wretched, and the list goes on.

  Thinking back all the way to the beginning of the world though, when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, the human race was free of sickness and sin. It wasn't until they sinned by disobeying the Lord that sin and sickness entered the world (Romans 5:12)
  In Deuteronomy 28:58-61 it says that if they don't follow His Law and revere the name of the Lord, He would send plagues, lingering illnesses, disease and "every kind of sickness" (NIV)
   Sin and sickness are closely associated in the New Testament, as well.   
    For example, let's talk about the man who was paralyzed in John 5. But when you are reading this, really think about the details of what this sickness meant and required.

  It says that this man had been an invalid for 38 years.... For 38 years he couldn't do anything for himself. That means he either just didn't bathe, or someone had to bathe him because he couldn't do it himself. That's not fun or clean or easy for either scenario. 

  Now, back in Mark 2:1-12 they are telling the same story, but they tell it in just a little bit of a different way. In verse 4, it says that there were four men who came and picked up the man who was paralyzed to bring him to Jesus. So, they've already realized he is sick, needs healing, and have had to deal with it for almost 40 years now.
  Now in order to get him to The Healer, they have to pick him up on a mat. But that mat is on the ground, in the dirt, and probably covered in dirt as well. It could have been covered in bugs and stuff if he wasn't clean or it could be muddy if it had rained prior. He was probably pretty heavy too.  So, they're carrying this man, holding him on a little mat, and in verse 4 it says when they get there, there are so many people, they can't even get to Jesus.  So they get on the roof.. (Umm, how?) and then proceed to dig through the roof so they can lower the man down.  (And they didn't drop him to plummet to his death.. again, um, how?)
  Then verse 5, "When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, 'Son, your sins are forgiven." And some of the teachers around called blasphemy and were asking who could forgive sins but God alone, to which, Jesus replied in verses 9 and 11-12a
  "Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?  So he said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all." (NIV)

  So, the moment that Jesus forgave this mans sin, is when he was healed. I feel like in those verses He is saying "It's easier to say 'you are forgiven' than to tell him to get up and take his mat and go home, because they are the same thing." Jesus didn't focus on the fact that this man was paralyzed. He immediately moved to forgiving His sins. To heal the sin, is to heal the sickness.
 
Now, going back to John 5, where again it is the same story, just written in different words. After he was healed verse 14 says,
"Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, 'See you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.'" (NIV)
  So, once again Jesus is saying your sin is causing the sickness, so cut it out, yo. 
And though this is sufficient enough evidence to prove that with sin comes sickness, but if it is not for you, here is another example:

Numbers 12 presents a story, which brings God's people a very solemn warning. Miriam, Moses’ sister, a prophetess and one who had been greatly blessed of the Lord, became prideful, and was speaking against (criticizing) Moses. (verse 8). God heard her evil speaking, and "the anger of the Lord was kindled" against Miriam and Aaron, her brother, who had entered with her into the criticism against Moses. At which point, Miriam became severely leprous, and would have remained so had not Moses prayed for her deliverance. Also meaning that Miriam would never have needed healing had she not sinned.
  I think sin breaks down the protection that God has built around us, thus giving Satan access to afflict us.


 
   Moving on though.... I want to go into the 'getting dirty' part.  I've seen so many people with any sort of illness end up getting sicker and sicker due to the fact that people don't want to get dirty with them and really help. I've talked about these scriptures with other people before and heard, in response, the excuse, "Well, I'm not those people. Just because they did it doesn't mean I have to get dirty too. They aren't Jesus." I being guilty of wanting to use that same excuse, too.
But in studying this, I've found that Jesus gets down and dirty with the sick as well!
 
  Let's read some of John 8:
"But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.  At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.  The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group  and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”  They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him." (vs. 1-6a NIV)
   Now, I'm going to use some of the King James version for this next part, but first I want to say that in KJV verse 4 says "this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act."
 Which tells us that they literally took this woman, while she was still naked, to the temple to see if they could stone her to death. So, the sun hasn't even fully risen yet, and this woman is on a mountain, naked, in a temple, in front of Jesus Himself. Woah. But not only that, she probably felt like all her emotions were exposed. And I know spiritually she had to feel naked and exposed because her sin was just right there in front of the Son of Man.
But I love this next part, verses 6b-9 say,
  
   "But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.  So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'  And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.  And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst." (KJV)

  I absolutely love this version because it says that Jesus stooped down. He got down in the dirt and began writing in the dirt with his finger, to protect a woman who was sick in sin. Twice. 
Then, after all of the other people left ,Jesus told her in verse 11, "Go, and sin no more."
  And this is so encouraging to know when you are that one, standing naked in every way, with everything seen before The Lord and other people.... He doesn't condemn you or let others condemn you. He gets down and he gets dirty to help you. He doesn't stand on a platform looking down upon you because you've messed up. He gets down lower than you. Then He tells you to go and not to sin anymore.
  And to the ones not knowing what to do to help, just do that. Get down and dirty to help them get out of their sins. Lead them to the Lord. Not everyone responds the same way so it will look different and be new territory sometimes but that's where building your own faith comes in hand.

  Again, back to when I was really sick, I definitely had people who got dirty to help me when I was standing naked and exposed before the Lord. I was disgusting a lot of times and they had to get in the midst of that with me. (Actually, I still do have those people to do that for me, and still am brought to my knees, exposed before God.)
    
  There's one time that I remember specifically, I was still living with the Lang family and I had cut while I was there and ended up getting caught. Cathy wanted to see what I had done, so she made me unwrap my arm from all the bandages I had on there and stuff. But in doing that, it started bleeding again. She was upset, obviously because I had harmed myself badly yet again, but she wasn't mad. She then got me some more bandages and gauze and whatever else to wrap it back up with. She sat there, lovingly, and helped me clean up the mess and blood from my self inflicted wounds. It was nasty. It was painful. It was messy. It was detestable. For both of us. I'm weeping as I type this, thinking about it because I know how hard that must have been for her.
  Or thinking about my precious mother who would check my body, daily, to see if I had new scars. The heart break in her eyes if I had, or even if I hadn't, but just because it was humiliating for both of us, makes me want to cry every time I am humbly reminded of this. Or when she would have to check up my sleeves for food I had hidden. Or when either of them would just hold me while I cried until I was sick.

  There are countless times that so many people around me got utterly crushed because they were helping me and I wouldn't be alive right now if they hadn't. As much as it hurts to think about and as much as I want to apologize to each and every person whom has supported me, I'm so thankful that they were an example of how I have a Savior that stoops down for me. I still have people, to this day, that continue to show me that and I wouldn't be where I am without them.
So, I leave you with this thought:

     Sometimes, getting dirty and being broken are the ways that we finally enable God to cleanse us and those around us.