Privacy Kills

Somewhere between four & five thousand healthy American’s die annually from choking on food, which means it kills more people than accidental shootings or airplane accidents. It’s number four on the National Safety Council’s list of death caused by “unintentional injury”. Somebody chokes to death every 2 hours, and over 95% of them will die in a safe & comfortable environment: At home. Statistics show that more people die from choking than die in fires. These statistics, however, as true they are, can be misleading.  

It’s common knowledge in the medical world that many choking deaths could’ve been prevented if only the individual hadn’t been so afraid of public humiliation. Out of sheer embarrassment, choking victims are known to silently excuse themselves from their company, calmly walk from the dinner table to the bathroom, lock themselves inside, and die privately. Ask any paramedic and you’ll find that the real cause of death in many of these cases wasn’t choking at all, it was too much dignity.

Choking at Church

The House of God is no stranger to dangerous levels of dignity. People can get comfortable over time in an environment like ours. They start feeling “at home” in their position, not realizing that home is the most dangerous place to be in regard to choking. Complacency sets in, and once it does, they grow a little too over-confident & self-permissive; they start to indulge in questionable attitudes & practices. Pretty soon they’re stuffing more unholy thoughts, desires, and behaviors into their life than their soul is able to swallow. Everything seems alright until they’re unexpectedly seized by an abnormally large portion of sin that they aren’t able to spit out. Not wanting to draw any attention to themselves, they do what they can to hide the truth of the situation. And more dangerous than the actual choking, they impulsively conceal their panic behind a calm demeanor and pretend to be fine.  

The House of God is no stranger to dignity…

In the church culture, this lethal form of dignity is better known as ‘pride’. Pride is refusing to concede that something has gone wrong at all. It’s not asking for help when you need it the most, for fear of the imagined social repercussions. It’s defending your integrity to your own detriment. When sin lodges itself in your heart and cuts off your life-giving supply of the Spirit, pride is what keeps you acting like everything’s normal. You might be dying, but pride doesn’t care. Rather than seeking help, pride steers you to the bathroom where you can try and save your own life, all by yourself, in private. And once that happens, you’re in greater danger than ever.

Swallow Your Pride

There is a calculated maneuver which has proven effective time & time again in rescuing a person from airway obstruction. It’s a technique that can be used by anybody, amateurs and professionals alike. It has saved lives every day (over 100,000 in fact) since its initiation in 1974. The dilemma, however, for those with too much dignity, is that it requires the help of another person. And that’s exactly what victims of pride try to avoid. Nothing scares them as badly as needing help from someone else. In some cases, it appears, death is preferred over accepting rescue.

Nothing less than full surrender…can liberate a person from pride

There is likewise a cure for pride, but like its medical counterpart, it’s stubbornly avoided by those who need it most. The Biblical practices of confession, repentance, and seeking forgiveness are some of the most sidestepped activities among pride-choked Christians. Some would rather die than to go through the inevitable shame associated with a procedure like that. They might try to put everyone at ease by making a forced confession (without really owning it), repenting outwardly (but not inwardly), and asking for forgiveness (before they’re even really convinced of their wrong), only to realize, you cannot dislodge pride with minimal effort. The issue is still an issue, and you still can’t breathe. Nothing less than full surrender to God’s instruction in a life & death situation like this can liberate a person from pride. Many victims have realized the truth of this just a little too late.

Unwanted Publicity

Perhaps it’s the nature of the rescue procedure itself. It hurts! The cure for choking is aggressive to say the least. The victim is usually pounded in the back, slapped, punched, and when that doesn’t work, squeezed until they hopefully spit up. Ribs are sometimes broken. The whole process is invasive & demeaning. It’s confrontational, and, worst of all, it’s usually public. If only choking were between me and you alone, but it rarely is. Choking never checks to see whether you’re dining alone, or if the restaurant is packed, with a line out the door. And pride is no different. Pride doesn’t care if people are watching. In most cases, it waits until they are.

No One Here Doesn’t Choke

All of us will choke, but only some of us will die. It should go without saying, but there’s nothing dignified about being found, dead & alone, on the proverbial bathroom floor with a throat full of pride. You haven’t protected yourself from embarrassment by hiding your issues from us, you’ve only secured it for yourself by refusing our help. Godly people don’t reject help…Godly people pray for it. “If they correct me, it is soothing medicine. Don’t let me refuse it” (Ps.141:5).

Sometimes it’s comforting to know that the one who’s helping you, has himself needed help from others at one time or another. We all have pride, and we all choke on it sooner or later. If you have reason to be ashamed of yourself, please understand, we all do! We’ve all felt that embarrassment, and we’ve all been tempted to ignore the truth of our situation. No one looks forward to the Biblical rescue process, because the techniques that save our life hurt every time. But we’ve all felt that pain, and we probably will again. So you are not alone. 

All of us will choke, but only some of us will die

How many of our friends, who share space with us at the Lord’s Table, are choking on their dignity right now? How many are pretending that they’ve swallowed their pride when they’re still not able to enjoy the fresh air of Christian fellowship? Don’t avoid help because it hurts, & don’t reject it because it offends. If you do that, you’ll die on the floor. And we’ll all know the real reason why.