On this day in 1992, President George H. W. Bush got ‘sick’ on Japanese Prime Minister, Kiichi Miyazawa. President Bush was visiting Asia on a 12-day tour speaking about the value of trade with America. He also wanted to focus on certain policies in the Pacific region. Earlier that day President Bush played doubles tennis against the Emperor of Japan and his son. The president was defeated, but his greatest defeat in Japan would not be on the tennis court, but at a meal hosted by the Japanese Prime Minister at his own home in Tokyo. The first and second course was just served (the 2nd course was raw salmon with caviar) and the President was supposed to give a few remarks afterward, but he ended up fainting into the lap of the Prime Minister and ‘getting sick.' Martha Bush along with the secret service quickly attended to the president. Attending doctors determined that the president had an attack of acute gastroenteritis, and would feel well enough by the next afternoon to resume his regularly scheduled tour. As you can imagine, the incident made the news, publicly humiliating President Bush. It became instant fodder as almost every late-night program made fun of the incident. It also complicated President Bush’s run for reelection. President Bush was 67 at that time and was running against a much younger Democratic candidate named Bill Clinton, who was only 46. The news media claimed that President Bush was too old to be president and that his health was failing. This event, along with other embarrassments would cost President Bush a second term in office.
This single embarrassing event cast a long shadow on the President. None of us are exempt from experiencing embarrassment, even presidents are part of the crowd. Each of us can recall times when we fumbled over our words, tripped on our own feet, thought you know a stranger (or worse yet, not knowing a person who knows you), etc. I can vividly recall leaving Lowes and trying to get into a car that looked just like mine, but it wasn’t mine. Not only wasn’t it my car, an alarmed elderly couple sat in the car looking at me with wonder in their eyes. In those moments it feels like every eye is upon you and your face begins to turn red. You wish you could crawl under a table and hide. Sometimes embarrassing moments aren’t that big of a deal, but there are times when embarrassment and shame are very real. Each Christian has committed spiritual blunders in our walk with Jesus, and each of us has done things that bring reproach to our testimony. What do we do in those moments of giving in to sin? Do we allow that shame to define us and defeat us? Do we allow that embarrassment to cause us to regress in our walk with Christ? Or worse yet, we allow the shame of our life prior to coming to Jesus to affect our pursuit of Christlikeness. What are we do to? First, we need to take ownership for what we did. We can’t be cavalier with our sin. Our embarrassing moments don’t go away by simply ignoring them. But after we take ownership for what we did, we go to God for forgiveness and He washes us clean. We then replace those shame-filled thoughts with Bible thoughts filled with hope. The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 25:2 “I trust in you; do not let me be put to shame nor let my enemies triumph over me.” One of the first steps we take as we walk away from that shame is trusting God and listening to what God says, not what others say. You aren’t that person anymore, that past doesn’t define you any longer. Don’t allow others' words to take up residency in your heart and mind, instead fill the vacancy with trust. Also, allow joy to replace shame. Psalm 34:5 says “those who look to him for help will be radiant with JOY, no shadow of shame will darken their faces.” We have no room for shame when the joy of Jesus overflows into our lives. Friend, don’t be defined by embarrassment and shame, be defined by who you are in Jesus Christ.
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