Tagged: honor

And a leper approached and bowed low before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” He stretched out his hand and touched him saying, “I am willing. Be clean!” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Matthew 8:2-4 The entire theology of honor is encapsulated in these three brief verses. Editors constantly urge writers to reduce their words; show, don’t tell. Be succinct, yet powerful. I rarely succeed. But Matthew did. Today his book is still a bestseller. All we need to know about honor and shame is here in this tiny tale: It is Jesus’ desire to make us clean, and He has all power to do so. Clean is another word for honor. My soul snags on this story, for I have… Read More

The Lord bless you and protect you; the Lord make his face (pāneh) to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance (pāneh) upon you and give you peace.  Numbers 6:24-26 The Hebrew word pāneh is the word for face and countenance. Its meaning includes appearance, presence, to be shown honor, to be under direction, to be under blessing, to be under supervision, watched, favored, to be given audience.  One small word with so much meaning for the people of God. The New Oxford American Dictionary (2021) defines countenance this way: (v) to admit as acceptable or possible (n) a person’s face or facial expression (n) support The rich words of Numbers 6 describe the outcome of the atonement for every person who… Read More

God seeks what has been driven away. Ecclesiastes 3:15 Hagar was driven away from her home (see Genesis 16). Her name, Hagar, carries the root in both Hebrew and Arabic that means to flee. For Christians, Muslims, and Jews, she has become a symbol of fleeing. Some might call her the mother of refugees. The God Who Seeks Those Driven Away pursued Hagar in the desert. Alone with her child, destitute, she believed death was imminent. How astonished she must have been to hear the voice of the Seeker, seeking her out, speaking wonderful words of hope and a future. Hagar, a bondwoman to God’s chosen family, was given the high privilege of naming God. She was the first person to give Him a new… Read More

This post originally appeared on audreyfrank.com July 21, 2019. The author has not learned much since she first wrote it. Maybe this time around. And Solomon assigned 70,000 men to bear burdens… 2 Chronicles 2:2 Some of us are assigned to bear burdens. [bctt tweet="There are projects in God’s kingdom that cannot be completed without burden-bearers. #perseverance #honor" username="audreycfrank"] The stones hewn from the mountain would not carry nor assemble themselves into towering walls to form Solomon’s glorious temple. They needed strong arms to bear them to their purpose. God’s assigned burden-bearer must be careful how she carries her load. I have a beautiful bowl handcrafted from the wood of an orange tree native to North Africa. Golden brown, it is inlaid with floral patterns of… Read More

And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” Mark 5:9 “What's your name?” the kind man in the appliance department asked my eighteen-month-old daughter. Blonde curls framed her dimpled face and her blue eyes sparkled as she answered. “Fweetie.”  Fweetie was her version of the affectionate name we always called her: Sweetie. Unashamed of her name, she knew who she was: dear to her father and me, no matter how she pronounced it. Not everyone knows how precious they are. Too many call themselves by dishonorable names, names like Hopeless Case, Ugly, Unlovable. Shame has forced them into isolation and stolen the affectionate names they were given by the One who made them: Talented, Beautiful, Loved. Shame’s goal is to steal our name. Shame itself… Read More

You have made us a byword among the nations;     the peoples shake their heads at us. I live in disgrace all day long,     and my face is covered with shame… Rise up and help us;     rescue us because of your unfailing love. Psalm 44: 14, 15, 26 Shame is not a foreign concept limited to countries where women are hidden behind the hijab, men commit honor-killings, or children with disabilities are forced to leave the villages of their birth. At the time of this writing, shame has shrouded the United States. We are a shame nation and the world is watching. We see shame differently than almost two-thirds of the world. (See the Global Map of Culture types here.) Shame is not the primary lens through… Read More

Everyone was settling down for sleep, but the old woman had to talk to the teacher. What she’d heard tonight was earth-shattering. Mind-blowing. Life-changing. Filth removed, disgrace transformed to honor, rejected now accepted? The story of the sick woman and Jesus was unlike any of the stories told in her tribe. The flickering firelight deepened the rich, warm espresso of her wizened face as she leaned close to the storyteller. “Thank you.” Like the woman reaching her hand out to touch Jesus, she paused to gather her courage for the next words. “I always knew I could be forgiven. But I never knew I could be clean.” To learn more about this woman’s story and how you can be made clean, get your copy of… Read More

Lord, how magnificent is your reputation throughout the earth! You reveal your majesty in the heavens above.Psalm 8:1 (Jesus), being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.Philippians 2:6-8 In the quiet night sounds of the little town of Bethlehem, among softly rustling sheep and the gentle munching of hay, the God of all Creation laid aside His magnificent reputation.  In the prickly straw of a manger, He yielded His praise.  Within rough-hewn homespun… Read More

for Susan Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—those he redeemed from the hand of the foe (Psalm 107:2). “You stopped before telling me the story. Go back and tell me the story!” Her request rang against the slap, slap, slap of our footsteps on the pavement as we ran in the early morning sunlight. My friend Susan had been listening intently as I shared a painful betrayal, a celebration stopped short by another person’s hurtful words.  I had recently rallied the courage to include others in a celebration of a hard-earned accomplishment, only to be criticized and gossiped about by a person who I thought was a friend. The incident sent my mind into a tailspin of humiliation. I was flooded with… Read More

I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me (Isaiah 45:4). His name was Kakuna. In the chiDuruma language, kakuna can mean many things, including, “I don’t have,” or “there aren’t any. ” In this boy’s case, Kakuna meant Nobody. I had often seen Kakuna on the edge of the crowds of children that clamored around our house each afternoon. He never drew near. That is until the morning I found him asleep on our front porch. Dressing the world in fresh colors of lemony sunshine, the light dawned quietly over his sleeping form. He lay unmoving, oblivious to the rustlings of women making early trips to the nearby water spout. I leaned down and… Read More