Does This Dress Make Me Look Fat

Psalm 69

For many years my wife struggled with obesity. As her husband I struggled with the fact that I tried many ways to help her, and she tried even more, but never gained control over that part of her life. While a line heard often enough on television show or in movies was, Does this dress make me look fat? used as humor, for a heavy set person, and so much more so for a woman the clothes they wear can emphasize the shape and weight. I briefly remember clothes with stripes vertical versus clothes with horizontal stripes makes all the difference in the world in the very real struggle a heavy set person endures.

We are concerned about appearances in other areas of our lives that aren't nearly as obvious as the weight of a person, but the underlying implications of those concerns remain very much as real and troublesome. Through the psalms I have been asking, Would Jesus or could Jesus have prayed this psalm as a prayer? This I ask to explore and maybe learn more of Jesus being fully man and how would what He prayed if He prayed the psalm as a prayer, how would His humanity show through in that dependence upon His Father?

It might be accurate to say that all truly born again believers struggle with their "am I living like Christ" perception by the world, by other believers, by my family, by others I wherever I go. Or even for myself what I write that is literally open for all the world to read. Within this psalm a prophetic statement is made:

For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me, and the rebukes of them that rebuked thee, are fallen upon me.

Psalms 69:9 GNV

This, of course, is what the disciples remembered when Jesus overturned the money changer’s tables in the courtyard of the temple. What a very physically exhausting time that was for Jesus, but emotionally, dare I even say mentally or psychologically? Those weren't as we think of today as card tables or fiberglass tables. Those were heavy solid wooden tables , maybe set up over 50 or 75 feet of tables for the thousands who had come during the festival to offer sacrifices, to buy their Passover lamb. With thousands of onlookers and possibly taking half an hour, an hour maybe to do all this that He did. We think mowing a lawn for half an hour is exhausting or splitting wood with an axe. Dozens of maual labor jobs have the same exhausting personal results. But for Jesus with thousands pressing in immediately watching Him do this, beside your students and the religious leaders right there too. As a man what were the internal results for Jesus? Some might want to defer to the Divine fully God to answer that. Or having been at the temple so many times before (at 33 he at least had been coming since He was 12, so 21 years) many He prayed up ahead of time for that specific purpose.

But that is only one verse. Much of this psalm is telling of onlookers, those who continually seek to undermined you quietly, subtilty, then openly, and with outright hatred simply because what you are doing is right.

Let not them that trust in thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for me: let not those that seek thee, be confounded through me, O God of Israel.

Psalms 69:6 GNV

We wonder what others are thinking when they look at us and we're so self conscious. Yes, what Jesus did was huge and in front of thousands. Still here David's concern when others were looking on, especially the humble, and those righteous before God seeing what others had done and were trying to belittle him, and trusting their own might to stand against him, what David did not want was for the faithful to God see that the God David was any less than all David made the Lord out to be, that his complete trust was in God wasn't a false trust. David didn't want them to be ashamed as they trust in the same God.

The question comes, are we more concerned about how what other believers see in our lives when they know we're trusting God and because of that we are in the situation we find ourselves, will it make them ashamed, will they question God's faithfulness when they see us?

The best answer? keep on watching. It isn't over yet.

Hear me, O Lord, for thy loving kindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. When I am poor and in heaviness, thine help, O God, shall exalt me. I will praise the Name of God with a song, and magnify him with thanksg@iving.

Psalms 69:16, 29 - 30 GNV

When a loved one dies, a husband, a wife in my case, or a child, especially in the family of a believer, many gather around from church and friends for a week or two, maybe a month, but as life goes you are watched and observed. People want to see if this God you say you trust in will bring you through it all. Oh, beautiful lovely things were said at the funeral or celebration of life, but how does that work out in the real world. Like grief what happens after tells the real story of who God is to you the spouse, the children, maybe not in the months following, but in a year or years to come. Hard times aren't over after things settle down. It can be tough for a long time to come. But do they see that "this God is real"? Even are we more concerned they see us grieving or do they see us trusting God in the hardness of our grief?

Whole we may be concerned physically with "Does this dress make me look fat?" type of questions, may we look back on hard times, on even death and though not the reason we do it, but after awhile, does my life in God before other believers make them ashamed of God, or do other believers and those outside of Christ join with you in song and magnifying Him with thanksgiving?