Like many other people, I have spent much time in abject pain brought on by those who claimed to love me. Usually what I have discovered is that their view of “love” is more like “make me be like them.” The problem there, of course, is that I am not them. I am me. Another version of this is “make me be acceptable to society.” This, of course, becomes a problem when that society is not acceptable to God.
The
society that is acceptable to God is the society that accepts what
God accepts, condemns what God condemns, loves what God loves,
despises what God despises, walks where God walks, avoids what God
says to avoid, and forgives as God forgives.
So,
what society is that? Well, I’m not sure that I can point you to a
particular society on this planet earth as an example of what society
it is, but I can tell you what society it is not. It is not the
“go-to-church-ianity” of the United States of America. It is not
the “go-with-the-flow-ianity” of the western world at large. It
is not the Chamberlain-esque “peace-in-our-time-ianity” of the
cowards at the political helm. It is not the
“do-as-we-say-or-else-ianity” of the ones who think they hold the
financial puppet strings firmly in their own grasp. It is not the
“my-way-or-the-highway-ianity” of those who have not the heart to
see beyond their own selfish noses. It is not the
“blind-your-eyes-to-pain-ianity” of those going through life
without a soul. These are from Hell.
Christianity
is not some easy, Bobby McFerrin spawned dreamland of “I’m OK,
you’re OK, just leave me alone to sin as profligately as I want to,
nicey-nicey, don’t ever speak Truth to anybody” perversion of
reality. Such a thing is not Christianity.
Christianity
is hard. It is facing the reality of what you are as God sees
it,
then repenting in an effort to be more and more like He really is.
This
is not easy. No one can see themselves that way without fail. We are
all perverted sheep who have abandoned the ways of God to follow our
own course, to live our own lives, and to wantonly pursue whatever it
is that our perverse little hearts crave after. We
are forever self-justifying whatever we want to pursue.
The reasoning goes like this: “God will understand because He knows
that I’m too weak to resist this. God must approve since He doesn’t
stop me. Since God never approves sin, this cannot possibly be sin.”
Can
you see the insidious nature of this reasoning? Not once have you
actually asked God! Very
likely, you also have never asked anyone else. This is what we call
accountability, and—especially
for someone like me, who has suffered as I have—it
is far from easy. Accountability
involves real trust on a level that one such as I can hardly imagine.
Too much pain, too much betrayal; the smoke of many burned bridges to
this day haunts the very nostrils of my spirit. Many, many times I
have trusted, been betrayed, and the guilty party has refused to even
acknowledge the existence of an offense, much less come back to me to
display repentance for what they did. Bridges burned. Smoke arising.
Too many times. Too many times.1
And
yet, what is at the very core of Christianity if not trust? Do you
see the difficulty? If you cannot trust those you can see and know,
how, then, do you propose to trust God, whom you have never once laid
open eyes upon, whom you can never fully know, and who is not at all
like you?2
I
love to see miracles because they show me the power of God, and every
rare so often, I get to see one attached to my own life. There is a
friend of mine who has been going through a very hard time regarding
their faith, and has
given me permission to tell the story of that struggle. I
have anonymized and condensed it somewhat, but, largely, the words
are their own:
I
know that God must work through trials because I am too stupid and
stubborn to learn any other way.3
Haven’t I heard my whole life about how awful and destructive sin
is?
John
Owen made the quote, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”
It’s so very true. I’ve heard it often, but never taken it to
heart like now.
I
was writing to another friend of mine, trying to explain that I have
been having a rough time spiritually since the beginning of the year.
I started thinking about that. See, if I think hard about it (which I
hadn’t up to that point) I can remember when I began to disconnect
from fellowship and feel distant in prayer. It was the week I went on
a missions trip. I wasn’t really in it because I was not serving
God at that time.
If
I think about it even more—I can remember the very hour. On the
trip there I was reading a book that talks about being spotless
before God. Part of becoming spotless was getting rid of past sins
committed. It suggested writing them all down, offenses against God
and other people, and one by one taking care of them, confessing them
to God and the people they were committed against
(my
emphasis). Effectively, “killing” sin.4
There was one past sin that stood out to me, a wrong I had done a
relative of mine. And I refused to deal with it. I had been trying to
forget it for some time. My relative didn’t know about it. I told
myself that no one had to know. I wouldn’t do it again. It always
made me feel kind of sick when I thought about it.
Can
you believe that a few months later I would be doubting the very
existence of God?
It
wasn’t worth it. None of it was worth it. While I had forgotten
about that moment completely, I wasn’t the same.
I
have confessed this sin to my relative since then, though only in a
letter. We haven’t sat down and talked about it yet. I still feel
wrong. I feel like there must be more. I’m praying that the Lord
will show me my sin so I can kill it and be more and more useful to
Him.
Though
I do not feel very much at fellowship with God, I have surges of
encouragement and hope that keep me going. And right in time for my
next trip! I plan on bringing that book with me again and actually
finishing it instead of setting it aside uncomfortably.
I
am very blessed to have a friend who urges me to do the hard and
difficult things. It is refreshing and convicting. Somehow you can
tell me to do painful things while still reminding me that you love
me. That’s wonderful. It really is.5
I
realized last night that though I had told my relative, I hadn’t
actually asked God for forgiveness for that sin, and it was like a
burden was lifting. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” A
confession once and for all that I was wrong. One reason it took me
so long to deal with that sin is because I tried to believe that it
wasn’t a sin. But having said it all, I was wrong. I was in sin, it
was sinful, and I need forgiveness. It’s such a relief. I will be
looking for opportunity to talk with my relative again, but I feel so
much better. I feel restored. I feel whole. And I want to grow more.
And
if they keep to that course, they will. As I wrote earlier,
Christianity is not easy. You have to trust. You have to take the
risk of laying your heart open, bare, and unguarded—with someone.
That is so hard, for someone like me, and I ask your prayers that I
will grow more in this respect. I do have something of an
accountability partner, and they do love me and care very deeply
about me, but they are at a distance, over the Internet, and I have
not had to face them eye to eye.
Just
this morning, in fact, I sent them something that was a real struggle
for me to send: the most recent volume of my personal journal, so
that they may more fully know my struggles, how to pray, and, if need
be, how to confront.
It
still stuns me that someone that I care so deeply for and hold so
dearly, also loves me—and trusts me so much so that they would
allow me to share their story as I have done here—publicly—in a
newsletter available worldwide. I find that to be such a testimony,
such an encouragement, and such a lesson for me. At the beginning of
the year (God had earlier, in the spirit, asked me if I would accept
or reject His gift), I had, quite nervously, placed that gift back on
the altar, begging with all my spirit that what I thought the gift
was would be returned to my hands. I do not yet know the answer to
that, but I know this: it is all a matter of trust.
1Very
largely, the perpetrators, here, have been from The Covenant
Presbyterian Church in west St. Louis County, and, as yet not a
single one—not
one—has ever shown me an effort at repentance, the leadership also
playing a role in the grievous sins wantonly committed against me.
21
John 4:20
3NOTE:
while they might be a bit stubborn (and just who am I to judge?)
they are far, far from stupid. Trust me on this.
4Matthew
5:21-24
