Years ago, God raised the issue of my defensiveness; it is no longer acceptable to me because I realize it is not acceptable to Him. But, oh, is it a part of me!

God gave me a picture of putting my defensiveness on His altar. It is there by agreement (God’s and mine), but it does not want to stay there!  I see it — ugly, naked, slimy thing that it is; it keeps trying to crawl off the altar.  However, God has it pinned there (like a biology specimen) so it cannot escape.

One day I prayed, Just as I offer my tongue to you to pierce to your doorway with an awl, I pray you will pierce my defensiveness, impaling it to your altar.

A few days later, I had the “opportunity” to be defensive again, and I rose to the occasion.  But I quickly turned those feelings over to God.  Again, I saw that wretched sin pinned to His altar, but its movements are growing weaker, more feeble.  Praise God!

Please help me to leave my defensiveness to you, to let go of it.

Since then, in a few situations ripe for defensiveness, instead of feeling that urge well up in me, I remained open, receptive, consciously aware that I should listen and see if there was something I needed to learn. In that stillness, I was so aware of God’s miraculous power to have transformed me in that way.

Just as unclean things render other things unclean by touching them (Lev 5:2), so God’s Holy Altar renders things holy when they are placed on it (Ex 29:37).  Somehow, even my defensiveness is made holy when I offer it so to Him.  I sense its holy absence in my life (a holy hole)!