[september contemplations]

9.1 My sins haunt me. The shame literally makes me feel sick. I fear that there is no mercy for me, no grace to cover these sins. I fear I've gone too far, that there's no coming back from this. I know I'm not alone: we all have our dark secrets, the awful skeletons in our closets, and even the great men of faith suffered moments of heinous sin. Abraham passed off his sister as his wife, Noah got shit-faced drunk, Samson couldn't keep his dick clean, Jeremiah accused God of being a rapist, David slept with another man's wife and had that other man slain to try and cover up the adultery. And yet they repented, and God kept using them, even called them men after his own heart. The heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 are all marked by sin but, even more, by grace. God knows my heart, knows that despite the pollution, despite its convoluted nature, I still desire to please him, yearn to honor him. I guess I kinda thought a switch would be flipped, that the gray would become black-and-white, that things would pan out with ease. But I was wrong. Faith is complicated, and hard, and we're yet made of dust, and we must rely not on our own strength but on the strength God gives us, trusting in His grace rather than our own spiritual accomplishments (if we can call them that). The shame I feel over these sins doesn't justify them, but it does testify to the fact that I am, at least in a certain sense, a good man. Good men who are devoted to God will sometimes find themselves overtaken and overwhelmed by their own humanity, and all we can do is trust in God, confess our sins, repent and keep repenting. The only other option is to submit to our all-too-humanness, to give in to our dark sides, to cast off God in our self-loathing. But the message of the cross isn't that God came to save those who didn't go "too far" but, rather, to seek and save precisely those who did. Any inclination that we'll be perfect after conversion is idealistic (read: unrealistic). God demands our repentance and offers us his grace. Job was a perfect man not because he never sinned but because he repented and kept on repenting. Wallowing in guilt and shame is its own collusion with the powers of darkness, a failure to appropriate for ourselves the great mercy, grace, and love of God, a way of saying that the cross just didn't cut it. My prayer is that God shows me his grace and mercy, and it is my responsibility, as a recipient of his grace and mercy, to likewise be a creature of grace and mercy to those who sin against me, not in an effort to justify myself, or to "make good" on God's love, but out of thankfulness for what he's shown me despite my laundry list of sins and shortcomings. 

9.6 There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. These are profound words worthy of much pondering (as Danny Dyke would say). It's easy to know but difficult to believe, and even more difficult to appropriate. I find myself, in classic fashion, weighted down my the knowledge of my sin. It hangs over me like a turpentine cloud. I find it difficult to pray because of my own unworthiness, I can't bear to ask a thing of God, and I even struggle to ask forgiveness, something I so richly do not deserve. I fear that if the guilt goes away, I'm trivializing my sin, hardening my conscience or something akin. Yet Paul declares that sin has been broken, we're no longer in its debt; the guilt has been transposed and dealt with, our slates have been cleansed. We are not debtors to sin but slaves to God; and not just slaves but children. Our cry is the Aramaic "Abba," the desperate cry of the child to a loving and providential father. We've been adopted as God's children, and as such we're both granted the privileges and responsibilities of family membership. These responsibilities (and privileges) include living by the Spirit, a type of life characterized not least by love, joy, peace, and hope: all things I'm fighting for but failing to attain. There's no joy and peace when my sins haunt me; there's no hope, for how can a creature such as myself claim title to such a thing? But as much as I may seem to be fighting for these things, perhaps I'm really fighting against them, in my own resistance to grace? In my refusal to put the past behind me, to look upon myself as a child of God rather than as an unkempt rascal, in my opposition to what grace means about me, maybe in this way I'm fighting against those things I so desperately crave? St. Paul and Hebrews tells us to boldly approach God, in confidence; not confidence because of our merit but confidence in our justified position before God through Christ. Paul tells us not to "fall back into a slavery of fear" but to stand firm in grace and to look forward to our inheritance. This is an admonition, a command, to know who we are in Christ and to let our mind be renewed by the Spirit. I struggle with this, I really do. I've got the guilt complex of a Catholic schoolgirl.

9.8 I long for a world of black-and-white, where the answer to all our dilemmas is presented to us in crystal clarity. But sometimes life presents us with situations where the right thing to do isn't so clear. At times we're forced to choose the lesser of two evils; there come situations where the only possible outcomes are fraught with perils and shadows. When those times come, I don't know what to pray for. But Paul says that even when we don't know how to pray, or how to pray as we ought, the Spirit is there interceding before God in our stead. There's comfort in that: God knows we're short-sighted and dumb-witted creatures, knows that we're not yet glorified and that our prayers are often marked more by our fallenness than anything else. And he doesn't leave us at the mercy of such things. The Spirit, our Helper & Counselor & Guide, prays the prayers we should pray; and my prayer, then, is that God will listen.

9.12 Paul says that nothing can separate us from the love of God, and yet I find it difficult to imagine how he could love a person like me. The things I've done and haven't done, the way I've hurt others out of my own selfishness, my willing disobedience... I can't help but wonder, "Does God's grace have limits?" Can we truly go too far? I can't help but think of Peter, who, in full knowledge of what he was doing, denied Christ three times; and Christ didn't say, "You've gone too far," but "You're going to go further." He didn't say, "You really fucked up, so go sit on the sidelines." No, he forgave Peter and then, shocking to all sensibilities, he commissioned him. Peter confessed his sin, his public & outright denial of Christ, and Christ gave him not only mercy (which he didn't deserve) but also grace (which he so didn't deserve). And I can't help but think of that next Pentecost, where Peter boldly announced the gospel. Those who had partaken in the mob clamoring for Jesus' crucifixion were gathered, confronted with the severity of their sins, and though standing condemned they were invited to align themselves with the one whom they crucified and whom God resurrected. Those whose hands were bloodied by Christ's death were summoned to be washed, to be made clean and whole; and not only that, but to be filled with God's own Spirit. I look at my sin, not those sins without knowledge but those sins with knowledge, and I ask, "How can God forgive me?" The answer, of course, is on a cross. All that God asks--no, demands--is repentance. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you WILL be saved. Christ is my Master, my King; I've committed my life to him, and I believe, beyond any shadow of doubt, that God raised him from the dead. And thus I've been saved; my sin is forgiven, no longer held against me; and I'm freed to be the person God wants me to be. There's not just mercy (not getting what I deserve) but also grace: getting precisely what I do not deserve. Friendship with God, a new identity, a commission to advance the good news of what God has done in Jesus. The pondering of this can't help but to inspire praise, awe, and wonder.

9.23 I keep thinking about forgiveness, what it means, what it's like, how to make it a reality in my life. What happens in forgiveness is simple: we're reconciled to God. Friendship is restored. God views us, and treats us, not as enemies at worst nor strangers at best, but as friends and family. Forgiveness breeds reconciliation, and the cross gives birth to forgiveness. Jesus defeated evil on the cross and death in his resurrection, and because sin has been defeated, it no longer holds any power. Forgiveness is the appropriation of that, the dismantling and defeat of all the evil putting us at enmity with God. Our sins aren't held against us, not because God ignores them or pretends they don't exist, or that they weren't really that bad after all, but because he's faced them, named them, and crucified them. This is why Paul can says that while it looked like Jesus was being dragged to the cross by evil, it was really the other way around. And because God has sapped our sins of all authority and power, they no longer pose that stop-gap preventing friendship with him. This means that shameful obsessions with our sin are empty, and fearing that our mishaps will deprive us of friendship with God is nothing short of foolishness. It means we can stand boldly in the Throne Room, it means we don't have to live in shame over sins. And, perhaps most amazing of all, it means God is released from being angry and wrathful towards us. When I reflect on my past sins, I keep thinking that there's simply no way God can be "on my side," no way that he can show me his goodness and mercy, because I certainly don't deserve it. But forgiveness wouldn't be forgiveness if it weren't for that little fact: I don't deserve it. Forgiveness isn't meek & mild, it isn't weak or dainty. It's powerful, it's effective, and it's the result of Christ's cosmic battle and victory over evil in his death and resurrection. 

9.30 Danny Dyke said, "Repentance is damned hard, it makes you want to cuss like a sailor!" He's right. But though hard, it's refreshing to the soul, invigorating to the spirit. My conscience is in need of renewal, and in regards to this whole "Get My Life Back on Track" thing, what I need in my faith isn't a fresh call to ministry but some time in Arabia. The past year has been marked more by low tides than high, and I've come to see through it all my desperate need for a faith that is founded on Christ alone rather than on any self-identity with vocational ministry. I can't equate the character of my faith with my involvement (or lack thereof) in vocational ministry. It may very well be that ministry is the cloth God wishes to cut for me (or, rather, sew me into); but what I need now isn't a pulpit but a good dose of time in God's throne room, just bathing in him and letting him reshape a heart and mind that's been polluted by too much time in the pigsty. Thus my renewed focus is to be on God and God alone, not on my performance for him. And I want to take this time in Arabia to really hack at those sins that so easily entangle me, to get back to the basics of Christian living and teaching, to get involved in church and to hopefully rid myself once and for all of those awful cancer-sticks that turn every back deck and front stoop into a cancer ward. My hope and prayer is that God will heal me and my life, stitch me back together, show me the path he wishes my feet to take.