How Time Heals

Hi, my name is Ken, and I’m a recovering self-help junkie. 

Henri Nouwen again, from a daily email I receive…

“Time heals,” people often say. This is not true when it means that we will eventually forget the wounds inflicted on us and be able to live on as if nothing happened. That is not really healing; it is simply ignoring reality. But when the expression “time heals” means that faithfulness in a difficult relationship can lead us to a deeper understanding of the ways we have hurt each other, then there is much truth in it. “Time heals” implies not passively waiting but actively working with our pain and trusting in the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Fellow Pilgrims, Strugglers, Fighters, Saints and Sinners…

Hi, my name is Ken, and I’m a recovering self-help junkie. 

Here’s an article for the ages which I have shared before but it’s more than worth sharing again. Must reading for any thinking Christian. It’s written by my friend Michael Spencer (aka imonk) who has recently been given 6-12 to live in his battle with cancer.

For fellow pilgrims, strugglers, fighters, saints and sinners…

From the iMonk Archives: When I Am Weak: Why we must embrace our brokenness and never be good Christians

The Perfection I Hope to Possess

Hi, my name is Ken, and I’m a recovering self-help junkie.

I needed this reminder today…

“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” ~Philipians 3:12-14, NLT

Memo: Horrific Earthquakes Don’t Discriminate

Hi, my name is Ken, and I’m a recovering self-help junkie. 

 

I was wondering today in the light of the lame and reprehensible comments Pat Robertson recently made—where were all of the promoters of karma, the converts to the laws of reciprocity and “The Secret” addicts when it came time defend such views… I mean isn’t it one and the same, doesn’t the door swing both ways? 

 

What’s wrong with saying “they got theirs”, when basically, it’s the very line of thinking you’ve been peddling all along?  It’s like saying there’s only one kind of racism instead of acknowledging that the knife cuts both ways.  Seems to me Pat was merely repeating a line out of some best-selling postmodern book on why bad things happen to bad people and only good things will happen to you when you are good (now, raise your hand if you’re one of the good people… no, come to think of it don’t).  

 

Your gurus can’t say everyone gets what they have coming to them and then slam the door on a guy just because he’s a “preacher”, a conservative, a bible thumper, he’s not on your team—or because he doesn’t look, dress or talk like you. 

 

Where I come from they call that a double standard.

 

Truth is, we all deserve hell.  And that God spares any of us from dying under the rubble of a building decimated by an earthquake is sheer mercy—deal with the devil or not.  If a deal with the devil is criteria for an earthquake Pat, what’s the criteria for Septemeber 11, 2001?  So much for deals with the devil. 

 

Now, you can blame God for an earthquake if you like, but you better be sure too thank him for the air you have to breath too if you’re going to travel down that road. If you want to talk about the devil and who he targets, well, he’s too busy chasing down those who are a threat to his vast empire to worry about those he already has is his fold.

What I’m really wondering is this: Just how big of a rock is in front of Pat’s cave?  Seriously, there’s like a million abortions a year that take place here in our country every year. We have more run-away greed, excessive consumption and needless waste than any other country I’d bet.  And the pace at which the pornography industry is expanding in the U.S. the last couple decades surely rivals the speed at which our national debt is climbing.  America isn’t “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet”. 

 

Now, if you’re going to agree with Pat’s comments you’ll have to throw out the book of Job while you’re at it. What about the Jesus loving Christians in Haiti who were killed when their church collapsed on them while they were at choir practice?  God could have spared them but he didn’t.  He may have reached out his arm and helped rescue a heathen instead, who is to say?  

 

We don’t know why earthquakes happen some places and not other places, other than that fault lines play a major role.  And we don’t know why some parents have children who are stillborn and others have healthy children. 

 

Why did Paul the apostle barely have shoes on his feet as he went island to island preaching the gospel, beaten and left for dead?  And why did Jesus himself have no where to lay his head?  Are we to applaud today’s charlatans who fly around the globe in their own private jumbo jets wearing Armani suits snacking on caviar while half the world goes hungry—teaching financial prosperity and seed theology as the height of Christian doctrine at the expense of people’s eternal destinies?  If God was going to see to it anyone was the victim of an earthquake, wouldn’t it be those snake oil salesman?  Were Paul and Jesus cursed by God for some pact they had made with the devil?  How about those we read about in Hebrews 11 who were sawed in two for their faith in Christ?      

          

Just as terminal cancer can strike the most positive young woman you know and an untimely stroke can happen to the healthiest man you know (and not because they failed  to follow some law of attraction), likewise, horrific earthquakes and other unexplainable disasters don’t discriminate.

Erik Guzman’s Resolution Solution

Hi, my name is Ken, and I’m a recovering self-help junkie.

It’s January 20th and by this time some of you have already broken every last one of your 2010 new years resolutions, or at least most of them.

A couple months ago I stumbled upon the following in the only magazine I read cover to cover (okay, it’s like 8 pages max). Erik Guzman has a blog and is the producer of Steve Brown’s varied radio programs (if you know me at all, you know I totally dig Steve).  The article came to mind cause I’m always looking for something to post here that has been helpful to me that might be to others.  I don’t normally re-print a post or an article in its entirety from someone else (as I am more inclined to simply provide a link), but this was so good I had to… and in the event Erik ever takes it down off his blog (The Merry Monk), I’ll have it here. 

I had quite a year. I made a few resolutions at the beginning of 2009 and I’ve done well.

I worked out 5-6 times a week and became a vegetarian. My resolution was to become a vegan, but cheese kept finding its way into my mouth (it snuck in on veggie pizza and goldfish crackers). I also ate an egg. Then there was the mahi-mahi my wife and I ate while celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary…and the lunch meat I tasted when making my kids’ lunch. (Hey, it could have gone bad. I was throwing myself in front of the salmonella bus to save the children.) But that’s not the point.

The point is that I made some New Year’s resolutions and I’ve done well. With all the exercise and my vegetarianism, I lost 50 pounds. I also quit drinking and sneaking my boss’ pipe tobacco. I’m like a Nazarite without the hair. I’m going to get a life insurance policy with premiums in the basement before I lose it and go on some kind of crazy meat and beer binge, gain all the weight back, and grease up my blood. But that’s not the point.

The point is that as of right now, I’m living as cleanly as I ever have. And on top of that, I started seeing a counselor to work through my stuff, to name “my demons” and kiss them on the mouth, in an effort to live in greater degrees of freedom. And on top of that, I’m working on another master’s degree at Reformed Theological Seminary. The way I’m going, I might get translated straight into heaven like Enoch. I hope the life insurance policy pays out even if they don’t find a body.

2009 has been a year of personal reformation in just about every area of my life. Do you know what I’ve discovered in the process of getting my act together? I’ll tell you anyway. God isn’t happy with me because of my efforts. I thought he would be. I went to him and said, “Look, Father, I’m finally starting to behave like a “real” Christian. What do you think of me now?” And he just replied, “Good for you.” I could tell by the way he said it that he wasn’t impressed.

There is something twisted in me that wants to make God happy, but I’ve found that it’s useless. Trying to make God happy is like standing on the beach, collecting the waves in a child’s bucket and pouring the water back into the surf in an effort to get the ocean wet.

God is already happy and nothing I do can add to or subtract from that.

“This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Those words from our Father were the air Jesus breathed. He did only what he saw the Father doing, and God the Father was constantly and consistently happy with God the Son.

Because of the cross, those are the Father’s words to us too. Listen to that still small voice that’s almost drowned out by self-condemnation and the accusations of our enemy and you’ll hear the words like a cool breeze in the heat of the day, “You’re my beloved child and I’m happy with you.”

Not only is the Father happy with me because I’m part of the body of his beloved Son, the fact is…he’s just plain happy. It is part of the package that comes with being the eternally blessed source of all goodness.

You don’t have to read much of the Bible to see what I mean. In Genesis, he says a few words and everything that exists springs into a good and pleasant existence. He didn’t create because of any need or loneliness on his part. The Trinity was enough. Instead, he shared his image with dust simply to bless us with the overflow of his happiness. And then, within an instant of our shattering that image and running from his blessing, the biblical account shows him chasing us to cover our shame. He proclaims his name in Exodus 34:6, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” Romans 11:35-36 reveals God’s overflowing wealth of blessedness this way, “Who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things.” He doesn’t need anything or owe anyone…he’s the very definition of satisfied.

The Old Testament is filled with commands to rest and celebrate in God’s goodness. We’re so uptight he had to order us to share in his happiness. All those feast days were not solemn occasions. Check out this seldom quoted command from Deuteronomy 14:22, 25-26 that reveals the spirit of the law, “You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year…bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the LORD your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household.” I bet you’ve never heard those verses used in a sermon on tithing.

In the New Testament we see God the Son frequenting so many parties he’s accused of being a drunk. The last book of the Bible reveals that the world ends with the biggest wedding celebration ever. Everyone’s invited and there’s an open bar: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17).

God has so much and is so much that he’s described as the fountain of living waters. We’re told that he delights in sharing his abundance with his children. Luke 12:32 reads, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

There is that word again, “pleasure.” God is pleased and it’s his pleasure to share the happiness of his abundance.

In the face of all that, it’s absolutely comical that I would want to make God happy, but I do. It’s ridiculous, but not unprecedented. In fact, it’s the same arrogance that motivated Adam and Eve to cover themselves with leaves instead of coming to God for clothes.

I am like the guys Paul talked about in Romans 10:2-4, “They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

That is what’s so dangerous about commitment in general and New Year’s resolutions in particular. Our efforts to be good can blind us to the only real righteousness there is.

Do you want to know what gave me the juice to get my act together this year? A life insurance policy with low premiums…and grace. It really is true that the only people who get any better are those who know that if they don’t get any better, God will still be happy with them anyway.

To be honest, when I first heard that message, I started smoking and drinking and rebuilding the CD collection I threw out when I first became a Christian. All because I really believed in the imputed righteousness of Christ. I was sure God was happy. But here’s the kicker…I wasn’t. I was absolutely miserable.

That is the upside of sin. If you’re really a child of God, it makes you sick. Keep it up and you’ll get more and more miserable, and consequently more and more determined to stop. You look around at the pigs you’re sharing dinner with and remember the celebrations at the Father’s house. You remember that he’s happy, that he has more than enough, and that if you go home, you’ll be happy too.

I didn’t get my act together this year to make God happy. I did it to make me happy and that’s why I did so well. When I pointed out my success to God and he said, “Good for you,” he meant it. God’s correction is his gift to us. But sometimes you don’t see that until you realize God’s already happy and he doesn’t need you to finish the job. And sometimes you don’t see he’s already happy until you get drunk and miserable and stumble home.

Hear these words from Nehemiah 8:9-10, “‘Do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, ‘Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.’”

Remember that if you find yourself feeling fat and undisciplined after all the holiday parties and food and overindulgence. As you haul that last garbage bag of torn up wrapping paper to the curb and start thinking about making some resolutions, don’t forget that God’s joy is your strength.

Don’t resolve to be good to make God happy. Instead, enjoy his happiness and you just might be surprised by your faithfulness. Even if you don’t get any better, it’s the best chance you’ve got at having a Happy New Year.

Now…does anyone want to go get a beer?

This piece was originally published in the Key Life Magazine. Click here for a free subscription and get articles like Resolution Solution and a whole lot more!

 

Who I Am

Hi, my name is Ken, and I’m a recovering self-help junkie.

The last several days it has come to my attention that I’ve hit a wall on several fronts in my life.  My plans to get a book deal have stalled (and not so I could become some big shot author by any means).  In addition, I could list 7 other things that have come to a halt—that is if they ever had gotten started to begin with.  I am collecting a paycheck right for which I can be very thankful (especially after being unemployed for over a year and considering how many others remain jobless). But for me a job is merely a means to an end.  My life consists of much more than what I do between the hours of 9-5.  

You see, my life has turned out to date much different from how I planned it say 20 years ago.  Oh, I know, the next chapter remains unwritten and that’s cool, because this chapter has been long and painful.  But it isn’t all bad… that is the inconviences, dissapointments, heartache and frustrations.  This unwelcome chapter after all has served to define me in a sense, and it’s also helped me find out some things I just had to know.  

 ^“Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
    whom he has redeemed from trouble…” ~Psalm 107:2

It’s our trouble that he uses to redeem us after all.  

I’ve learned who I am, and maybe even just as importantly, who I am not.  Whether I am anyone else’s or not, I am God’s beloved child.  I am a sinner covered by sheer mercy and saved by amazing grace.  My name is written in the Book of Life with ink that cannot be erased.  So, no matter what awaits me, and irregardless of whether the rain is pouring or the sun is shining tomorrow—I am spoken for, I am forgiven, and I am in the company of the Lord’s redeemed.

A First Wednesday in March

A guest post from my talented brother John.  Posted this several months back and after reading it again this morning I wanted to re-post it. 

Final night of a five-day trip to Geneva. It is raining. I have reason to be grateful: I brought my raincoat and umbrella 4,100 miles and they will see some action. Everything has meaning, relevance. The raincoat and umbrella? We all carry baggage… may that which we carry be on us for a reason.

I have packed and loaded many journeys with unnecessary baggage: With a pair of shoes I was too lazy to use; books I hadn’t had the time to read. One time, I took a laptop to Paris and didn’t bother to remember the power chord.

This time, I managed to pack a single oxford shirt that I didn’t need. A few measly ounces of unneeded baggage. I can live with that.

There are other lessons in this rainy evening. My journey, rather, my destination. I didn’t have one when I set out. I had a goal, but no clear view of what achievement looked like. I just wanted an hour or two to run away from the hotel room that had become my eight-hour office after I had already completed my eight-hour day. I needed to use the raincoat and umbrella. I needed to eat.

I walked past pizzerias and pubs, Chinese and Italian. The Four Seasons was packed with cigars and suits, and scotch. It smelled like the life I’m scrambling away from.

The Criteria for Coming to Jesus

Ran across the following today on a blog a frequent, I took the advice.  Maybe you could use it as well.

Jesus does not say, ‘Come to me, all you who have learned how to concentrate in prayer, whose minds no longer wander, and I will give you rest.’ No, Jesus opens his arms to his needy children and says, ‘Come to me, all who are weary and heaven-laden, and I will give you rest.’

The criteria for coming to Jesus is messiness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy.

~Paul Miller, A Praying Life

HT: Jared Wilson 

One Day’s Wages

Eugene Cho has been working on this for some time.  I’m happy to see his vision taking form.  If you have any kind of heart for those less fortunate, I’d recommend you check out this new ministry to the poor and consider supporting it.

See Eugune’s blog here to learn more.

Some Messed Up Christians

For those of you who read my blog frequently, or just once in a while, the following should make a lot of sense.  Michael Spencer (aka imonk) posted this on his popular blog yesterday and I can’t post a link today for some odd reason. 

If you know anything about me, you know I am no proponent of an empty feel good religion that sugar coats our true condition as sinners and you also know I am wore out with “5 Steps To Being The Christian You Were Meant To Be.”  For years I entertained the accusations of those who told me I wasn’t a Christian because of my many sins.  Well, I don’t listen to their lies any longer.  However, I do need a reminder about the reality from time to time.  Often times I forget that I am not the only messed up Christian.  Maybe you could use the reminder too. 

May God show each of us how messed up we are—still.

The voice on the other end of the phone told a story that has become so familiar to me, I could have almost finished it from the third sentence. A respected and admired Christian leader, carrying the secret burden of depression, had finally broken under the crushing load of holding it all together. As prayer networks in our area begin to make calls and send e-mails, the same questions are asked again and again. “How could this happen? How could someone who spoke so confidently of God, someone whose life gave such evidence of Jesus’ presence, come to the point of a complete breakdown? How can someone who has the answers for everyone one moment, have no answers for themselves the next?”

Indeed. Why are we, after all that confident talk of “new life,” “new creation,” “the power of God,” “healing,” “wisdom,” “miracles,” “the power of prayer,” …why are we so weak? Why do so many “good Christian people,” turn out to be just like everyone else? Divorced. Depressed. Broken. Messed up. Full of pain and secrets. Addicted, needy and phony. I thought we were different.

It’s remarkable, considering the tone of so many Christian sermons and messages, that any church has honest people show up at all. I can’t imagine that any religion in the history of humanity has made as many clearly false claims and promises as evangelical Christians in their quest to say that Jesus makes us better people right now. With their constant promises of joy, power, contentment, healing, prosperity, purpose, better relationships, successful parenting and freedom from every kind of oppression and affliction, I wonder why more Christians aren’t either being sued by the rest of humanity for lying or hauled off to a psych ward to be examined for serious delusions.

Evangelicals lovea testimony of how screwed up I USED to be. They aren’t interested in how screwed up I am NOW. But the fact is, that we are screwed up. Then. Now. All the time in between and, it’s a safe bet to assume, the rest of the time we’re alive. But we will pay $400 to go hear a “Bible teacher” tell us how we are only a few verses, prayers and cds away from being a lot better. And we will set quietly, or applaud loudly, when the story is retold. I’m really better now. I’m a good Christian. I’m not a mess anymore. I’m different from other people.

Please. Call this off. It’s making me sick. I mean that. It’s affecting me. I’m seeing, in my life and the lives of others, a commitment to lying about our condition that is absolutely pathological. Evangelicals called Bill Clinton a big-time liar about sex? Come on. How many nodding “good Christians” have so much garbage sitting in the middle of their lives that the odor makes it impossible to breathe without gagging? How many of us are addicted to food, porn and shopping? How many of us are depressed, angry, unforgiving and just plain mean? How many of us are a walking, talking course on basic hypocrisy, because we just can’t look at ourselves in the mirror and admit what we a collection of brokenness we’ve become WHILE we called ourselves “good Christians” who want to “witness” to others. I’m choking just writing this.

You people with your Bibles. Look something up for me? Isn’t almost everyone in that book screwed up? I mean, don’t the screwed up people- like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Hosea- outnumber the “good Christians” by about ten to one? And isn’t it true that the more we get to look at a Biblical character close up, the more likely it will be that we’ll see a whole nasty collection of things that Christians say they no longer have to deal with because, praise God! I’m fixed? Not just a few temper tantrums or ordinary lies, but stuff like violence. Sex addictions. Abuse. Racism. Depression. It’s all there, yet we still flop our Bibles open on the pulpit and talk about “Ten Ways To Have Joy That Never Goes Away!” Where is the laugh track?

What was that I heard? “Well….we’re getting better. That’s sanctification. I’ve been delivered!” I suppose some of us are getting better. For instance, my temper is better than it used to be. Of course, the reason my temper is better, is that in the process of cleaning up the mess I’ve made of my family with my temper, I’ve discovered about twenty other major character flaws that were growing, unchecked, in my personality. I’ve inventoried the havoc I’ve caused in this short life of mine, and it turns out “temper problem” is way too simple to describe the mess that is me. Sanctification? Yes, I no longer have the arrogant ignorance to believe that I’m always right about everything, and I’m too embarrassed by the general chaos of my life to mount an angry fit every time something doesn’t go my way. Getting better? Quite true. I’m getting better at knowing what a wretched wreck I really amount to, and it’s shut me up and sat me down.

I love this passage of scripture. I don’t know why no one believes it, but I love it.

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:7-11)  

Let me attempt a slight retelling of the text, more in line with the Christianity of our time.

But we have this treasure in saved, healed, delivered and supernaturally changed vessels, to show that God has given to us, right now, His surpassing power over ever situation. We are no longer afflicted, perplexed, in conflict or defeated. No, we are alive with the power of Jesus, and the resurrection power of Jesus has changed us now…TODAY! In every way!. God wants you to see just what a Jesus-controlled person is all about, so the power of Jesus is on display in the life I am living, and those who don’t have this life, are miserable and dying.  

Contextual concerns aside, let’s read Paul’s words as a basic “reality board” to the Christian life.

We’re dying. Life is full of pain and perplexity. We have Christ, and so, in the future, his life will manifest in us in resurrection and glory. In the present, that life manifests in us in this very odd, contradictory experience. We are dying, afflicted, broken, hurting, confused…yet we hold on to Jesus in all these things, and continue to love him and believe in him. The power of God is in us, not in making us above the human, but allowing us to be merely human, yet part of a new creation in Jesus.

What does this mean?

It means your depression isn’t fixed. It means you are still overwieght. It means you still want to look at porn. It means you are still frightened of dying, reluctant to tell the truth and purposely evasive when it comes to responsibility. It means you can lie, cheat, steal, even do terrible things, when you are ‘in the flesh,” which, in one sense, you always are. If you are a Christian, it means you are frequently, perhaps constantly miserable, and it means you are involved in a fight for Christ to have more influence in your life than your broken, screwed up, messed up humanity. In fact, the greatest miracle is that with all the miserable messes in your life, you still want to have Jesus as King, because it’s a lot of trouble, folks. It isn’t a picnic.

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)  

Here is even more undeniable, unarguable language. Weaknesses are with me for the whole journey. Paul was particularly thinking of persecutions, but how much more does this passage apply to human frailty, brokenness and hurt? How essential is it for us to be broken, if Christ is going to be our strength? When I am weak I am strong. Not, “When I am cured,” or “When I am successful,” or “When I am a good Christian,” but when I am weak. Weakness- the human experience of weakness- is God’s blueprint for exalting and magnifying his Son. When broken people, miserably failing people, continue to belong to, believe in and worship Jesus, God is happy.

Now, the upper gallery is full of people who are getting upset, certain that this essay is one of those pieces where I am in the mood to tell everyone to go sin themselves up, and forget about sanctification. Sorry to disappoint.

The problem is a simple one of semantics. Or perhaps a better way to say it is imagination. How do we imagine the life of faith? What does living faith look like? Does it look like the “good Christian,” “whole person,” “victorious life” version of the Christian life?

Faith, alive in our weakness, looks like a war. An impossible war, against a far superior adversary: our own sinful, fallen nature. Faith fights this battle. Piper loves this verse from Romans, and I do, too. But I need to explain why, because it can sound like the “victorious” life is not Jesus’ life in the Gospel, but me “winning at life” or some other nonsense.

13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put (are putting) to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)  

The complexity resides right here: Faith is discontentment with what I am, and satisfaction with all God is for me in Jesus. The reason that description works so well for me is that it tells us the mark of saving faith is not just resting passively in the promises of the Gospel (though that is exactly what justification does), but this ongoing war with the reality of my condition. Unless I am reading Romans 8 wrongly, my fight is never finished, because my sinful, messed-up human experience isn’t finished until death and resurrection. That fight- acceptance and battle- is the normal life of the believer. I fight. Jesus will finish the work. I will groan, and do battle, climb the mountain of Holiness with wounds and brokenness and holy battle scars, but I will climb it, since Christ is in me. The Gospel assures victory, but to say I stand in a present victory as I “kill” sin is a serious wrong turn.

What does this fight look like? It is a bloody mess, I’m telling you. There is a lot of failure in it. It is not an easy way to the heavenly city. It is a battle where we are brought down again, and again and again. Brought down by what we are, and what we continually discover ourselves to be. And we only are “victorious” in the victory of Jesus, a victory that is ours by faith, not by sight. In fact, that fight is probably described just as accurately by the closing words of Romans 7 as by the “victorious” words of Romans 8.

23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:23-25)  

I fall down. I get up….and believe. Over and over again. That’s as good as it gets in this world. This life of faith, is a battle full of weakness and brokenness. The only soldiers in this battle are wounded ones. There are moments of total candor- I am a “wretched man” living in a “body” of death. Denying this, spinning this, ignoring this or distorting this reality is nothing but trouble in the true Christian experience. The sin we are killing in Romans 8 is, in a sense, ourselves. Not some demon or serpent external to us. Our battle is with ourselves, and embracing this fact is the compass and foundation of the Gospel’s power in our lives.

What lands us in churches where we are turned into the cheering section for personal victory over everything is denying that faith is an ongoing battle that does not end until Jesus ends it. Those who stand up and claim victory may be inviting us to celebrate a true place in their experience at the time, but it isn’t the whole person, the whole story, or all that accurate. They are still a mess. Count on it. This battle- and the victories in it- are fought by very un-victorious Christians.

I will be accused of a serious lack of good news, I’m sure, so listen. At the moment I am winning, Jesus is with me. At the moment I am losing, Jesus is with me and guarantees that I will get up and fight on. At the moment I am confused, wounded and despairing, Jesus is with me. I never, ever lose the brokenness. I fight, and sometimes I prevail, but more and more of my screwed up, messed up life erupts. Each battle has the potential to be the last, but because I belong to one whose resurrection guarantees that I will arrive safely home in a new body and a new creation, I miraculously, amazingly, find myself continuing to believe, continuing to move forward, till Jesus picks us up and takes us home.

Now, let’s come to something very important here. This constant emphasis on the “victorious life” or “good Christian life” is absolutely the anti-Christ when it comes to the Gospel. If I am _________________ (fill in the blank with victorious life terminology) then I am oriented to be grateful for what Jesus did THEN, but I’m needing him less and less in the NOW. I want to make sure he meets me at the gate on the way into heaven, but right now, I’m signing autographs. I’m a good Christian. This imagining of the Christian journey will kill us.

We need our brokenness. We need to admit it and know it is the real, true stuff of our earthly journey in a fallen world. It’s the cross on which Jesus meets us. It is the incarnation he takes up for us. It’s what his hands touch when he holds us. Do you remember this story? It’s often been told, but oh how true it is as a GOSPEL story (not a law story.) It is a Gospel story about Jesus and how I experience him in this “twisted” life.

In his book Mortal Lessons (Touchstone Books, 1987) physician Richard Selzer describes a scene in a hospital room after he had performed surgery on a young woman’s face:

I stand by the bed where the young woman lies . . . her face, postoperative . . . her mouth twisted in palsy . . . clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, one of the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be that way from now on. I had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh, I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had cut this little nerve. Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to be in a world all their own in the evening lamplight . . . isolated from me . . .private.  

Who are they? I ask myself . . . he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously. The young woman speaks. “Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks. “Yes,” I say, “it will. It is because the nerve was cut.” She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. “I like it,” he says, “it’s kind of cute.” All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with the divine. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers. . . to show her that their kiss still works

This is who Jesus has always been. And if you think you are getting to be a great kisser or are looking desirable, I feel sorry for you. He wraps himself around our hurts, our brokenness and our ugly, ever-present sin. Those of you who want to draw big, dark lines between my humanity and my sin, go right ahead, but I’m not joining you. It’s all ME. And I need Jesus so much to love me like I really am: brokenness, memories, wounds, sins, addictions, lies, death, fear….all of it. Take all it, Lord Jesus. If I don’t present this broken, messed up person to Jesus, my faith is dishonest, and my understanding of it will become a way of continuing the ruse and pretense of being “good.”

Now I want to talk about why this is important. We must begin to accept who we are, and bring a halt to the sad and repeated phenomenon of lives that are crumbling into pieces because the only Christian experience they know about is one that is a lie. We are infected with something that isn’t the Gospel, but a version of a religious life; an entirely untruthful version that drives genuine believers into the pit of despair and depression because, contrary to the truth, God is “against” them, rather than for them.

The verse says, “When I am weak, then I am strong- in Jesus.” It does not say “When I am strong, then I am strong, and you’ll know because Jesus will get all the credit.” Let me use two examples, and I hope neither will be offensive to those who might read and feel they recognize the persons described.

Many years ago, I knew a man who was a vibrant and very public Christian witness. He was involved in the “lay renewal” movement in the SBC, which involved a lot of giving testimonies of “what God was doing in your life.” (A phrase I could do without.) He was well-known for being a better speaker than most preachers, and he was an impressiveand persuasive lay speaker. His enthusiasm for Christ was convincing.

He was also known to be a serial adulterer. Over and over, he strayed from his marriage vows, and scandalized his church and its witness in the community. When confronted, his response was predictable. He would visit the Church of Total Victory Now, and return claiming to have been delivered of the “demons of lust” that had caused him to sin. Life would go on. As far as I know, the cycle continued, unabated, for all the time I knew about him.

I understand that the church today needs- desperately- to hear experiential testimonies of the power of the Gospel. I understand that it is not good news to say we are broken and are going to stay that way. I know there will be little enthusiasm for saying sanctification consists, in large measure, in seeing our sin, and acknowledging what it is and how deep and extensive it has marred us. I doubt that the triumphalists will agree with me that the fight of faith is not a victory party, but a bloody war on a battlefield that resembles Omaha Beach more than a Beach party.

I write this piece particularly concerned for leaders, parents, pastors and teachers. I am moved and distressed that so many of them, most of all, are unable to admit their humanity, and their brokenness. In silence, they carry the secret, then stand in the place of public leadership and present a Gospel that is true, but a Christian experience that is far from true.

Then, from time to time, they fall. Into adultery, like the pastor of one of our state’s largest churches. A wonderful man, who kept a mistress for years rather than admit a problem millions of us share: faulty, imperfect marriages. Where is he now, I wonder? And where are so many others I’ve known and heard of who fell under the same weight? Their lives are lost to the cause of the Kingdom because they are just like the rest of us?

By the way, I’m not rejecting Biblical standards for leadership. I am suggesting we need a Biblical view of humanity when we read those passages. Otherwise we are going to turn statements like “rules his household well” into a disqualification to every human being on the planet.

I hear of those who are depressed. Where do they turn for help? How do they admit their hurt? It seems so “unChristian” to admit depression, yet it is a reality for millions and millions of human beings. Porn addiction. Food addiction. Rage addiction. Obsessiveneeds for control. Chronic lying and dishonesty. How many pastors and Christian leaders live with these human frailties and flaws, and never seek help because they can’t admit what we all know is true about all of us? They speak of salvation, love and Jesus, but inside they feel like the damned.

Multiply this by the hundreds of millions of broken Christians. They are merely human, but their church says they must be more than human to be good Christians. They cannot speak of or even acknowledge their troubled lives. Their marriages are wounded. Their children are hurting. They are filled with fear and the sins of the flesh. They are depressed and addicted, yet they can only approach the church with the lie that all is well, and if it becomes apparent that all is not well, they avoid the church.

I do not blame the church for this situation. It is always human nature to avoid the mirror and prefer the self-portrait. I blame all of us who know better. We know this is not the message of the Gospels, the Bible or of Jesus. But we- every one of us- is afraid to live otherwise. What if someone knew we were not a good Christian? Ah…what if…what if….

I close with a something I have said many times before. The Prodigal son, there on his knees, his father’s touch upon him, was not a “good” or “victorious” Christian. He was broken. A failure. He wasn’t even good at being honest. He wanted religion more than grace. His father baptized him in mercy, and resurrected him in grace. His brokenness was wrapped up in the robe and the embrace of God.

Why do we want to be better than that boy? Why do we make the older brother the goal of Christian experience? Why do we want to add our own addition to the parable, where the prodigal straightens out and becomes a successful youth speaker, writing books and doing youth revivals?

Lutheran writer Herman Sasse, in a meditation on Luther’s last words, “We are beggars. This is true,” puts it perfectly:

Luther asserted the very opposite: “Christ dwells only with sinners.” For the sinner and for the sinner alone is His table set. There we receive His true body and His true blood “for the forgiveness of sins” and this holds true even if forgiveness has already been received in Absolution. That here Scripture is completely on the side of Luther needs no further demonstration. Every page of the New Testament is indeed testimony of the Christ whose proper office it is “to save sinners”, “to seek and to save the lost”. And the entire saving work of Jesus, from the days when He was in Galilee and, to the amazement and alarm of the Pharisees, ate with tax collectors and sinners; to the moment when he, in contradiction with the principles of every rational morality, promised paradise to the thief on the cross, yes, His entire life on earth, from the cradle to the Cross, is one, unique grand demonstration of a wonder beyond all reason: The miracle of divine forgiveness, of the justification of the sinner. “Christ dwells only in sinners.”