Separate

Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the LORD. (Isaiah 52:11) 

          Have you ever fallen in with the wrong crowd? Have you been talked into doing something you later regretted?  Have you ever been concerned about your child or younger sibling doing these things? We may differ on precisely who the wrong crowd is, or what the regrettable thing might be, but I think we’ve all been there, done that. It’s a natural part of loving: you want what is best for the loved one and want to protect, to separate, him/her from harm, even if they are not wise enough to appreciate it.
          When it comes to God and His Thou Shalt Nots, we often feel like that beloved person. We resent the restrictions. When He says “Be holy, as I am holy,” we turn away – sometimes even shake our fist at God because we don’t want to be that impossibly good person, quietly wandering around a cloister, praying 26 hours per day, eating a half a slice of bread per day. We want to have a life! We assume that we know better than that loved one what is best for us. The truth is, more often than not, we’re not much wiser. In fact, that “wrong crowd” may well be our crowd, or just like it.
         In today’s writing on prayer, E.M. Bounds discussed the place of holiness in prayer. Holiness should be the goal of our prayers. It should be our goal to touch no unclean thing and to be pure because as Christians, we don’t carry the vessels of the LORD, we are the vessels of the LORD. I say this, and yet, I am reluctant to cry, “Lord, make me holy.” It could be that “wisdom, direction and attitude” are another way to say just that. The difference, it seems to me, is that “holy” is separate from, while “wisdom, direction and attitude” seems to me to be a separate unto. That may be the key to the matter, recognizing the direction we’re moving.