One of my favorite comedic vignettes from years ago is of precocious five year old Edith Ann featured in a popular TV variety show. 
Seated in a huge wooden rocker much too big for her little girl frame, she would share her lisped wisdom. It was usually quite thoughtful, sometimes with ‘out of the mouths of babes’ accuracy, and frequently embarrassing. To adults that is. It made perfect sense to her and she often hit the nail on the head. Meanwhile, grownups listening to her had, and still have some things operating against them. Two to ten decades later, they’ve forgotten what was once so clear at the tender age of 5 B.G.: before guile.
It was quite interesting to look up the definition of guile which means (take a deep breath):
artfulness, artifice (ruse or ploy), cagey, canny, devious, foxy, cunning, slick, sly, sneaky, subtle, wily; with calculation, care, design; savvy, sharpness, shrewdness; cleverness, finesse; deceitfulness, duplicity, shiftiness, underhandedness and (breathe) … cheating, deception, dishonesty, dissembling, double-dealing, fraud, falsehood, untruth, hypocrisy, insincerity, furtiveness, secrecy, shadiness, oiliness, slipperiness, smoothness, unscrupulousness, sanctimonious, and two-faced (among others).
If you’re still reading, of equal interest are the antonyms (opposite meaning) of the word guile:
artlessness, forthrightness, good faith, guilelessness, ingenuousness (free from pretention or calculation), sincerity; and the near antonyms of candidness, directness, frankness, openness, plainspokenness, honesty, dependability, reliability, solidity, trustworthiness, decency, goodness, incorruptibility, integrity, righteousness, truthfulness, uprightness, and virtuousness.
Guess which ones best describe The King’s Chair?
Righteousness and Justice are the foundation of Your throne;
Lovingkindness and truth go before You.
Psalm 89:14 NASB
Every heart enthrones someone. A sense of the law runs strong in the Adamic nature, like blood continually pulsing through our veins. (Note: have you ever noticed that when you get upset, angry or intense about something or someone, the blood pulses in your temple? Selah on that awhile).
Since the Garden, flesh has entered into sitting as judge, jury and sometimes executioner. Of others. If not in actuality, then in judging and handing down sentence on others’ reputation and motivation. And if not that publicly, then in ‘safe’ privacy and if not that, then where it’s ‘really safe’ – in one’s own thoughts, which arise from one’s own heart where resides a throne.
At times we may want to cry out with David, “Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your face?” (Psalm 139:7 LITV) when conviction strikes. I well recall when not all that long ago Holy Spirit called me up short for a fleshly habit of ‘assigning motive’ to others. He sternly reminded me that I do not know what is in others’ hearts; He does. I see in part; He sees in full. When I look at the outward appearance, He is looking at the heart – theirs and mine. I repented. Thank God for His lovingkindness and truth. He speaks the truth in love in a way that goes right to the heart of the matter – my own heart. When tempted to resurrect and engage that habit He is faithful to convict me and help me to overcome.
He does that by reminding me Who I have asked to sit on the throne of my life. He reminds me of the day years ago when I gave Him full permission to rearrange the furniture in this temple. The day the blue wingback chair that once decorated our living room became the outward symbol of The King’s Chair within and its rightful place in my life. There are days that in the flesh I may feel like Edith Ann, but hidden in Him I am a company of horses.
There is not a one of us who has not enthroned Self. The law of self-preservation has ruled strong within everyone who has ever drawn breath. History itself bears out that fact. Further, we’ve not been beyond employing some of those less than savory definitions of guile – if not outwardly, surely inwardly.
This subject of the throne and who/Who is enthroned in our heart – out of which springs our life[1] – is not a light matter. It has been the struggle of humankind since the Beginning. Everyone, everyone, will make a choice; ‘Me and My will’ or ‘Christ and His will’. Which one rules is evidenced by where we set our heart and mind. (Colossians 3:1-2)[2]And not coincidentally, our backside. If we have to skooch over to make room for Jesus on the throne of our life, we may be reverting to some through the lattice living.
The becoming Bride is well familiar with this struggle, for the potential to overcome dwells within her. It is none less than Christ in her, the hope of glory. The truth of which is essential to the preparation for sharing His Millennial throne. Only then will the Bride judge from His foundation of righteousness and justice in the same lovingkindness and truth that goes before Him that blessedly once went before her.
When He appears, those who have chosen to enthrone Him and allow Him to reign supreme in every area of their life, labor, and relationships will be revealed with Him as He is: full of His glorious dignity.[3]
Whenever Christ our life is revealed, then also you will be revealed with Him in glory.
Colossians 3:4 LITV [2]
Please bear with me for one more post from chapter three. Life is a journey. So is Vineyard Days ♥
~ Gracefully Free
[1]Proverbs 4:23 – the scripture on which this blog “Wellspring of Life” is founded
[2]Read in context in Colossians chapter 3, verses 1-17; it’s truth worth soaking in
[3]Doxa (Gr.)
Photo credit: Under the Shadow of the Cedars of Lebanon via photopin (license)
Photo credit: Edith Ann, public property
Your conviction about assigning motive convicted me, as well. How often I assume that someone else’s motives are known to me and act on that assumption, wrongly. Thanks, Nancy, for the new understanding.
Dear Dianna – thank you for your humble confession; I appreciate ‘conviction camaraderie’. You’re welcome. We’ll thank Holy Spirit who loves us enough to correct us for our own good and His glory (well ok, and ours too!).