Have you ever read the little children’s book, “Everyone Poops”?
Comical, yet truthful. The title itself a bold declaration… Everyone poops… everyone! All people throughout all ages have pooped. That’s right, even the Son of God, Mister JC, took Himself thousands of poops!
I’m sorry if that sounds blasphemous… its a little jarring to think of our Savior in such a way, i know… but maybe that’s cause we so spiritualize Him we forget that He was also completely human.
It’s just part of our condition, part of our make-up, our design, the way we process food. And so the question becomes, if we can’t stop pooping, what do we do with the poop??
I’ve been the world over this year… and it’s safe to say that most people don’t just poop in a can, push the lever, and magically watch poop disappear, never having to see or smell it again… its gone, wah la! What a luxury we have in the West? No… most people, believe it or not, dig a hole in the ground and that’s where they do their business.
These holes fill up though, and one can imagine it gets pretty stinkin sick!! ughh… i have had my share of humbling experiences in the bathroom. This is my routine…
I walk over to the bathroom, take a moment to build my faith… then make my entrance, only to see some nasty hole in the floor, pee, poop, and wet toilet paper scattered about (i’m sorry, its just the truth). And sometimes the poop below you is dangerously close to the top… it can just get awful!!
And before I squat, no kidding, I look up and say, “Humble thy self before the Almighty God.”
In bible times most people humbled themselves through fasting or the putting on of sackcloth and ashes… All you really have to do if you want humility is build yourself a nice ole squattie potty outback. I promise… anyone struggling with pride… just try it.
Our team this past week went to a remote Ukranian village to help out with a church plant. They had some real needs around the church. The first… digging out an overflowed squattie!! pictured below…
Secondly, we secured the area with a brand new squattie hole!… one that will hold plenty of poop for the years to come, without the danger of overflow… yikes!
A day after we left the village we recieved a text from the pastor there, “Thank you for all the hard work, you know I will never forget you.” (some grateful humor)
The same thing, however, is true with our spiritual lives… not one of us is without spiritual poop. Again, the question is, what are you going to do with it?
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” -1 John 1:8
Our junk… our baggage… our spiritual poop… maybe things of the past, maybe things in the present… where is it? What have we done with it?
Truth is… as in the physical, the poop has to go somewhere… sin cannot be ignored, we cannot pretend that our junk doesn’t affect us. It’s like walking around with a full diaper thinking everything’s okay! It’s not! That’s gross!
We are laying in our junk, kinda like this dog…
King David knew what it was like… “My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness” psalm 38:5… in King Matthew version it’s translated, “My sineth stinketh up my whole lifeth.”
Maybe some of us have lost our sensitivity and have forgotten how much we smell. Sadly, I’ve been in a squattie so long that i got used to it. That is NOT GOOD! How dangerous this is to us spiritually, when we are so used to our stench that we cease to know our foulness. We need the Holy Spirit to awaken us to the nasty nasty of our heart…
“Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death…? Rom 7:24
That’s the Apostle Paul talking, he knew He stunk up the place everywhere he went. When he says, “body of death” he means it, stink and all! His high affirmation of God’s law and his honest view of self led him to make such a conclusion…
“For i know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil i do not want is what I keep on doing.” Romans 7:18-19
And he continues…
“So I find it to be a law, that when i want to do right, evil lies close at hand.” Rom 7:21
Like everywhere Paul went he had toilet paper stuck to his shoe… and he knew it.
But Paul didn’t give up… and neither should you or I. His own inner depravity and inability to not stink, led him to put his trust in the Master Plumber. And so he answers his own question,
“Who will rescue me from this body of death… thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Rom 7:24-25
Every one of us has bowel movements, physically… and all of us have them spiritually, that is, all but one. And His name is Jesus, and He doesn’t have a hint of odor about Him. He is perfectly human, and perfectly God… And He has come to save us from our sick condition… and oh what He must do to save us?
“He became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Cor 5:17
Jesus took on all of our junk and became the filthiest of all creatures that has ever lived. One terrible sinner is enough of a horror to look at, and to think of the sin of the entire world, past, present and future being laid upon the body and soul of Jesus… He Himself being perfect, deserving none of it, but desiring it as a means of glorifying His father and redeeming His people. Who can ever know the agony He experienced on the cross?
Jesus crowned His earthly ministry with His own inner cry, “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken me?!!” For the first and only time in all of eternity, as the judgment of God fell on Jesus, He was separated from the Father…
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
A pastor of mine back home has a saying, “Be a sewer pipe, not a septic tank.”
A septic tank is one who tries to hold onto his own sins, deal with them in his own way… which leads to death.
A sewer pipe is one who has learned the art of entrusting his sin to the Savior’s work… and that leads to life!
For Christ has risen! He has overcome the grave to give us new life in Him!!
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleans us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
So where is your junk today? Are you carrying it, or are you giving it to Jesus where it belongs? Maybe you’ve forgotten that you stink and need to repent, or maybe you’ve never even taken that first honest smell of yourself?
This year I have smelled my foulness in ways I never knew possible. I have had to learn all over again just how sinful and horrible I am… but in that I am learning just how much deeper the love of Christ is for me… and that inspires me to worship!!
