The Sin of Ham/Caanan

The Sin of Ham/Caanan

I was pondering on how I conduct my life. It was then the Holy Spirit brought to mind, the little instances when I casually converse with my colleagues and we happen to come across someone we find irritating, or mindless and begin to exchange 'justified' views about him/her. It seems all too casual, all too justified and all too natural. Then one of us will chip in a juicy bit of news the other person is not aware of, such as, " The other day when I opened the door for her she just walked past as if I am transparent and did not even thank me, let alone greet me. These young ones have no manners!" Or, "Do you know that so &so was not even in his class when I went in and the pupils were walking all around the class & they are promoting him. There is the other person who's so hardworking and he is not even noticed. So unfair!" At times we exchange negative news about others with the excuse of pitying them.

We get pulled into workplace politics and we end up pouring our frustrations to one another without realising that we are falling into satan's traps of the sin of gossip, the sin of judging others, the sin of spreading negative vibes and the sin of exposing the sins of others and shaming them.  This is exactly what Ham /Canaan  his son/grandson  did according to Genesis 9:20-22. He exposed his father's sins and thus was cursed.

Sometimes we wonder why we are not blessed, why we are facing problems after problems but we fail to realise that our sins cut away our blessings. Not only are we affected but our children and our children's children down to seven generations.

Upon receiving that revelation, I thanked the Holy Spirit for bringing this to mind today and asked Him to help me keep myself in check always. How glad I am that now, we have the blood covering of Christ Jesus to wash away our sins when we repent and run back into His arms. Thus our curses are broken and turned into blessings for us and our descendants through the redemptive blood of Christ.

Prayer
Lord, help me to present myself well and to abstain from speaking negative things about others. Just as the north wind drives the rain away, so does a backbiting tongue and an angry countenance. (Proverbs 25:23)

New Living Translation
          James 4:11
Don't speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God's law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you.

Reference:-
Genesis 9:20-22 NIV
Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. [21] When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. [22] Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside.

Genesis 9:24-25 NIV
When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, [25] he said, “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers. ”

Notes:-
Ham was Noah's second son and Canaan was the youngest son of Ham. 'Canaan' in Hebrew language means, "to be humiliated!"

Mary Augustine