What size are your ears? .......... Parables 606

August 4, 1998

Remember Pinnochio, the wooden puppet who wanted to be a real live boy? In the story, every time he told a lie, his nose grew.

A news item reports that our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears never stop growing. Having tried portrait painting, I am aware that a child’s eyes are huge compared to other features. I’ve also noticed when you look at a person’s profile, the length of the ears is the same as the nose. Age doesn’t matter.

That ears and noses never stop growing is a surprise. I suppose if they have to be the same size as each other, it makes sense if one grows, the other must grow also. At least this would keep our features looking somewhat balanced. What a curiosity. Why would we need continual growth to our nose and ears? When we get older, is there a need for increased nasal passages? Does our hearing improve if our ears keep getting bigger? There seems no reason for it.

From another angle, it would be interesting if we had the same type of affliction as Pinochio – only applied to hearing the wrong things, like gossip. Imagine our ears becoming larger whenever we listened to stories better left unheard. How helpful. We could easily identify those who can keep secrets and those who should never be told anything!

This news story makes me think about gossip. Idle talk is a universal activity. People in every culture and for centuries have been swapping stories about others, particularly those not involved in the conversation and who have not given permission for the telling.

As much as people like to gossip, no one wants others to gossip about them. Most of us agree that it is wrong and Christians know God says we should not do it. Before I read about it in the Bible, my grandmother said, “If you cannot say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Sometimes gossip begins innocently. We tell someone about another person’s troubles and ask them to pray for that person. If we stopped and prayed at that point, all would be well. However, talk easily slides to semi-disguised put-downs, ridicule or a judgmental evaluation. Job’s friends even did this to his face.

God does not take this universal activity lightly. It is listed with sins like jealousy, anger and arrogance. Slander (a closely related relative) is classified with greed, idolatry, adultery and sexual immorality. The Bible says, “A false witness will perish, and whoever listens to him will be destroyed forever.” (A variation says, ‘ . . . and the words of an obedient man will live on.’)

Gossip is wrong yet breaking the habit is seldom easy, especially if everyone else is doing it. My sister says she gets caught too, but sometimes stops herself with a little trick. She says, “I gossip about myself.”

Actually, she shows great insight. We need a certain core attitude before we can resist both gossip and slander. If we can tell stories about ourselves, particularly highlighting our weaknesses, mistakes, or short-comings, we usually have a healthy self-image. People with a strong sense of their own value do not need to tear someone down to build themselves up.

A healthy self-concept is rooted in deep confidence that God loves and accepts us and will meet all our needs. Since His opinion is primary and His care is certain, there is no need to prove anything or compete with others, much less tear them apart with gossip.

As for the ear/nose thing, I could check it out by measuring them every year. However, God says “life and death are in the power of the tongue” so that means another priority. By His grace, I’m working on putting a stop to the growth of gossip.

Toward a truer self-image ................ Parables 569

September 30, 1997

Do you remember reading about Louie the cat with obnoxious habits? First she tore out her hair in two strips down her back. After she got tired of that, she began looking at her reflection in shiny surfaces. Soon she was fighting with it and howling night and day. Her owner finally had to cover every surface in their home that allowed the cat to see her own image.

I know what it is like to fight with my reflection. Bed-head mornings, black-eyed tired, zits, and “what? Is-that-another-wrinkle?” can keep me almost howling in front of the mirror, sometimes with laughter, sometimes in dismay. However, I am learning that what I see in the mirror is not the most important image to be concerned about.

One of the first things I learned as a new Christian is that God called me to be changed into the image of His Son. That goal impressed me so much that I wanted to cooperate with God. However, I soon discovered that this new image was easier to set as a goal than actually define or reach. First, I had to discover what Jesus is really like. Along with that, there was the seeming impossible task of getting rid of the things in me that did not conform to His likeness.

Difficult as it sounds, this goal ought to be a universal. The Bible says that God made everyone of us “in his own image” both male and female. However, because we tend to go against the will and character of God, we toss mud on the likeness He intended we reflect. We have difficulty seeing it in each other and it prevents us from clearly seeing Him.

As I studied this concept of self-image, I began to realize that I could not think well of myself when I was not living up to the lofty ideal for which God created me. Something deep inside was not satisfied with me — no matter where or when I encountered myself, like Louie, I was fighting with what I saw.

Thankfully, God knows the cure to a low or sensitive self-view. He began to show me that although I saw myself as a sinner, the new reality of Christ in my life was beginning to change that image. I was “a new creation” and, as 2 Corinthians says, “the old has gone, the new has come!” He wanted me to stop looking at myself from my muddied perspective and start seeing myself in Christ, as He sees me.

My self-image has also been affected by the treatment of others. Lack of love or consideration, as well as unkindnesses, leave holes in my esteem but God says those things do not need to shape my image anymore. I do not have to be the person others try to shape by their words or abuses. If I insist on looking at myself through their eyes, my view will be distorted, like looking at my face in a coffee spoon.

In Christ, I am a new person. I am forgiven and washed clean of sin, given new life and new ways to think. Right now, I may not be all that I will be, but God is at work and the Bible says He will finish what He started in me (Philippians 1:6). When I enter eternity, all vestiges of my old self will be gone. What an encouragement to change and grow, to stop basing my way of life on what I used to be or how people used to treat me. Because of Christ and the certainty of God’s promises, now I am shaped by my future, not my past.

Those days when I act like Louie are becoming fewer and farther between thanks to the marvelous grace of God. To cure me, He knew better than fill my house with magic mirrors or let me find a restored self-image in temporary things. Instead, He is at work changing the person who is looking at the images.