Tagged: honor and shame

The angel came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you!” Luke 1:28 In honor-shame cultures throughout history, women have been honor-burden bearers for their families, tribes, and nations. Men have served as honor guards. Honor-bearers and honor guards have learned their roles from childhood. Avoid shame at all costs. Preserve the honor of the group by doing your part. This is the essence of the honor-shame worldview.  Mary knew her role, even as a young girl. By all cultural standards, she was a beacon of honor. Like other Jewish girls her age, Mary carefully maintained this position in her family and community by doing the expected things: following religious law, fulfilling household duties, and accepting her family’s careful arrangement of… Read More

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. John 9:1-3 His espresso eyes welled with sincerity as he sat gingerly on my bed. What sin have you committed, sister? I have come to ask God to forgive you and heal you. My migraines were exponential in the equatorial heat, and carrying water on my head in five-gallon buckets was not helping. I was spending more and more time in the welcoming relief of my shadowy mud house, retreating from sun and exertion.… 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

It is a truth universally acknowledged that humanity often finds lies easier to believe than truth.-Audrey Frank Some lies seem to be written on hearts in permanent ink, graffitied in different languages across cultures and continents, yet all meaning the same. unWorthy. unLoveable. unSeen. unHeard. unKnown. unClean. unDefended.  At The Truth Collective, we are seeking to uncover the lies and help people believe what is True. We are proud to unveil our latest project, the unGallery, premiering in Charlotte, NC, October 10-11. Global artists have contributed exquisite expressions of the lies we often believe and the Truth that sets us free. I hope you will join us by reserving your space here. Be sure to use the code AudreyFrank for a 30% discount. Over the… Read More

To read Part One of When You Are Tested on the Very Truth You Declare, click here.  Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.Luke 22:31-32 There is a time in the walk of discipleship when we are tested on the very truth we declare, the promises that liberated us. The truth set us free. We know it is real. We have seen its fruit in our lives and others’. We have secured our identity in what God says is true about us. Perhaps we even built our life work on proclaiming it to others that they might be free, too.… Read More

Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.Luke 22:31-32 When we are tested on the very truth we declare, we really should not be surprised, but we often are. I wasn’t thinking about this on the day I met Hamida. She had traveled for days from the desert to reach our clinic, and her shyness was tangible as she sat before me, eyes averted and hands fluttering nervously in her lap. The flowing orange melhfa she wore barely covered the ugly scar that dripped down her face. “My mother-in-law did it with boiling oil,” she murmured, pulling aside the cloth to… Read More

For my only true Father in heaven on Father's Day God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.Genesis 1:27 We all have a Father, and we were made to look like Him. When we know who He is, we will know who we are. It was almost Halloween, and my mother asked me to climb up in the attic to find the plastic jack-o-lanterns we always toted around to collect candy. I was flattered by her request. I had never been trusted to go into the attic before. My sister and I had been severely warned never to go there for fear of stepping in the wrong spot and crashing through the… Read More

for Erick George Floyd, you were caught trying to buy a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill, according to the news reports. As you placed that bill on the counter in hopes of getting one more drag from a cigarette you had no idea you stood on the razor-fine edge of a precipice, your life an inflection point for an entire nation. You had no clue you would soon ignite an honor outcry. I wonder if you’d known, if someone asked if you had it in you to change the world, what your answer would have been.  Not many of us think we have the power to change the world. World-changing, history-defining moments often happen in an unplanned instant to common people. Our… Read More

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.Romans 5:5 There is a hope that does not put us to shame. Love, at its heart, is about hope. Hope that we might be valued enough by others to be loved by them. Without hope, there could be no love. How interesting that Romans 5:5 embeds this little gem of encouragement right in the middle of a hard passage about suffering, during a time when many hearts want to give up all hope. Paul, the writer, urges us toward a better hope, one that does not disappoint. Our world needs to know such hope right now. The… Read More

Come down from the cross (Matthew 27:40). We don’t often think of Calvary in terms of the emotional temptation of Jesus. But if we listen closely to those insulting dagger words thrown at Jesus by the chief priests, teachers of the law and elders, we will recognize the voice of the deceiver. Just as he challenged Jesus’ lordship in the wilderness during the famous temptation recounted in Matthew 4, he can be heard in the Savior’s weakest, most exposed moment on the cross, tirelessly seeking to break Jesus’ will.  W. Glyn Evans, in Daily with the King, describes it like this:  “The emotional strain of the cross was staggering. The chief ingredient was abandonment. The abandonment of Jesus was complete—people, disciples, and even (though only… Read More