While in church today, my pastor was preaching out of Acts. It was a very casual late service, starts at 11:45 (I like to treat my Sabbaths as Sabbaths), though usually I arrive for an earlier service. Nonetheless I was up late the night before, and woke up very late. So I rolled out of bed. My hair was scruffy, I had to choose in what ways to clean myself up, I did not have time for a shower.
So I choose to brush my teeth, spray a little deodorant, wash my face. My hair? Run my hand through it 3 times... "No time. Just wear a hat."
In the middle of the service, I'm told to take my hat off. Not by anyone around me, not by anyone I know. Not by myself. But I am told to take off my hat. I've experienced God speaking to me in multiple ways, including - when I was young - with a physical voice (a strong whisper, in the middle of an empty quiet street, in a quiet neighborhood, unmistakeably His). But by far the most common way I have been spoken to, is through instant, intrusive vocal and verbal thoughts. Words that I know aren't physical, and certainly aren't mine.
He told me plainly, and simply, "take off your hat". Just those four words. Self conscious fear filled me. My hair is the center of my small amount of prideful vanity. But prideful vanity it is nonetheless. My pastor went on and on, a feeling of droning flowed from my ears to my mind and soul, not from his tone but from his length on touching this particular subject.
Paraphrasing, "We don't like to open our box of failures and mistakes, especially in front of others. Our pride steps in and prevents us in every way it can. We will make every excuse to keep that box closed." I shamefully did not take my hat off immediately. A very shameful 3 minutes passed in my mind and heart as I sat there with my hat still on. Until I realized, "*if I can't sacrifice this miniscule passion of vanity here in the house of my Father, for my Father, among my own people, my own Christians, then how can I ever hope to beat any other vice, how can I ever hope to accomplish anything greater than removing my own hat for the Lord and His Kingdom?*" The answer is, I can't. Not in any serious or consisten capacity, at least.
So as my pastors words kept chipping away at my pathetic vanity, I took my hat off.
And about 5 seconds later, the Lord immediately told me to take off my jacket. Why? More pathetic vanity. Because when I look in the mirror I think, "Hmm, my arms are too small. My shoulders should be bulkier, my stomach isn't bad but has grown a little since I stopped doing cardio.". So, I took my jacket off.
I've accomplished things for the Lord before, some very good things, but my passions were largely yet to develop. Now I am older, wiser, smarter, more physically fit, and a more prideful, more vain, more foolish, more self centered failure than I've ever been before.
That is the answer as to why I cannot accomplish anything for the Lord like I used to, why I can't accomplish anything greater than I used to. Here I am trying to put great things together, here I am trying to conquer my greatest problems, all while I can't take off my hat or jacket for prideful vanity.
I have learned now, that to improve, especially for the Lord, that not only must you build a firm foundation to live upon, but in order to do so, you must first find the bedrock of your soul. No foundation built on the forest or desert floor can withstand the weight of your battle against the passions. I have learned new meaning in the knowledge that no foundation can be built on sand. You must dig through the topsoil and remove it. Then you must slog through the rocket, gravely earth below it (you know, the kind that is just too big for your spade, but not big enough to justify a skid-steer or excavator). Then you must sweat and toil through the hardpan. When when you reach the cracked boulder below it, you must bloody your hands while desperately trying to split it. And you must haul that bouldee out of that deep, dark, filthy pit.
Only then have you removed that terrible, deadly sin that you must destroy. Only then are you able to build on the bedrock on which the Kingdom of God will sit upon in your soul, heart, and in your physical life.
But you're never going to get there without removing that topsoil. You can't. It's physically impossible.
First, you have to take off that hat.
