Dirt

 It must be horrifically exhausting knowing that someone has dirt on you. Not only that but having that dirt used as leverage to make you perform like a puppet on a string must be downright soul-crushing.

Just imagine having the proverbial sword of Damocles swinging over your exposed neck nonchalantly, knowing that it can drop at any minute. It must be psychological torture, but that said, likely not unwarranted.

In the hopes of garnering sympathy, those on whom dirt is being had are quick to insist that they are being blackmailed, but if you’d never gone and done things worthy of blackmail, well, then no one would have anything to blackmail you with, now would they?

There are certain statements in Scripture that we take as possibilities or probabilities when they are presented to us as absolutes. From the infrequently mentioned, the soul that sins shall die, or the even less frequently declared without holiness no man will see the Lord, there are a handful of declarative statements that men tend to avoid altogether due to their implications.

We would rather skirt, circumvent, or altogether ignore broad swaths of the gospel than have to contend with the reality that this walk is challenging, and costly, and brutal, and fierce, and not something to be set upon halfheartedly, indifferently, or duplicitously. Count the cost, Jesus said, and He meant it.

Among the many declarative scriptures that imply inevitability rather than probability is the warning that if you sin against the Lord, be sure your sin will find you out. Sounds ominous. Sounds like something preachers, evangelists, and those self-titled or otherwise who chase after the spotlight and insist on being spiritual leaders, ought to have taken more seriously. Given that one after the other they are crying foul, claiming blackmail, and decrying the frailty of the flesh, maybe they ought to have spent more time in the Word than trying to live like rock stars.

It may just be that I’m growing more cynical with age, but of late, every time I hear of someone going off the reservation, doing a complete 180, and supporting things wholly antithetical to Scripture, my first thought is I wonder what kind of dirt they have on him? Yes, it has become that prevalent.

If this morning’s scribbles serve as anything, I hope they serve as a public service announcement to anyone toying with the idea of compromise, of living a duplicitous life, or believing they’re really good at hiding whatever it is they should have repented of. Be sure your sin will find you out!

If you’re lucky, you’ll just be exposed, shamed, mocked, and ridiculed into obscurity. If you’re not so lucky, corrupt people who care not a whit about anything other than their own power will hold your sin over your head and force you to do their bidding until you are a shell of your former self, waiting to die, perhaps even hoping for it.

It’s not as though we’re short on cautionary tales. I’m sure you can find a handful by doing a google search. To name them here would just be kicking a dead horse, and I’m not that much of a sadist.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.