I felt oddly alone even though I was with other women I
loved and respected. It was a vulnerable
time of confession that was a rare event at a Christian women’s
conference. The speaker asked the
attendees to light up their phones and raise them in the darkened auditorium
when they heard a word that resonated with them. Unworthy, fearful, broken, anxious,
overwhelmed, bitter and empty were some of the words read aloud.
In that holy experience the roll call of my
heart issues were not inventoried. With
each passing word the creeping sense of being different in ‘not good’ ways
cloyed at me. The isolation triggered a combative
insecurity that wanted to know why.
Eventually, I was consoled when the speaker said one of
my words, in fact, she said the biggest word on my list. I thought, “Yes, that’s me!” Feeling
strangely comforted, I raised my glowing phone in a salute of gratitude. I realize my emotional response may seem a
bit illogical. It was, after all, an
exercise of confession, not some competition.
However, I don’t mean to celebrate sin or conversely let you think that
I didn’t have any sins to shine my phone for, because I had plenty.
Loudly absent that night were an assortment of my words: a critical spirit, self-righteous, envious,
a know it all, and demeaning. Under
my perfectionistic tendencies is a self-critical spirit that incessantly taunts
me on the rare occasion I am wrong. I am a bully at the deepest level of my
heart. I defend standards that are way
too high, and if you fall short, well, you are just another donor to my every
growing list of disappointments. The
excellence I strive for breeds the self-import that covers me with a rancid
stench that most people are nose-blind to.
Surely there had to be more women like me, those that
shared my struggles and had similar words left buried in the dark. I consider myself a fully devoted follower of
Christ who struggles daily with a different set of sins. The work they were doing at that conference
was a beautiful thing, but the battles they were fighting were not mine. I meet with Jesus in very different trenches
to heal very different wounds and offenses.
It’s these non-trending, under-publicized sins that
occupy the trench where I do most of my sanctification work with Jesus. It’s a crowded ditch, home to judgement as
well as guilt, discouragement and hope, and disbelief and faith. It’s a messy place that grace calls
home. It’s where Jesus mends my shamed
spirit and then shows me how to be more like him. This is my daily battle. This is my trench work that I cannot do
without him!
Jesus has revealed so much to me in this trench. One of
the more powerful insights that he has given me is that there’s a wrong way to be right. We’ve spent years together working on this
one! He’s recently bringing me to deeper
waters where he’s training me to let go of being right altogether and allowing
others to be wrong. Oh my gosh,
sometimes this is more painful than child birth, but this is the trench work he
is calling me to!
No sin is pretty and it’s all the same in God’s eyes, but
in our eyes some sins are more tolerable, like the ones that come along with
looking good as a Christian. My heart
tells me I am not alone in this trench work, and after that conference the Holy
Spirit has been nudging me to be ugly honest.
So here is my ugly, honest lesson: looking good and rule keeping has its
own cost. Some of my most egregious sins
have been because I needed to maintain an appearance of being right or being
accepted. That is a very dangerous place
to be!
Pride was the very big word that lit up my phone that night. Strange as it was, when I
was sitting there feeling alone and unattractively different, it was pride that
walked me into that sacred time of confession.
Often our sins tend to the broken places within us, that’s how they get
a foothold and that’s why we need to bring them to the trenches for redemption.
No iniquity is more infamous than pride. Hands down, it’s one of the greatest offenses
to God. Pride is a swarthy culprit that has driven me to make reckless
decisions, it has fractured my relationships, it has taken me to hills that God
has not called me to die on, it has sequestered me when I needed help, and,
most sadly, it has made others feel bad about themselves. This is not the gospel of Christ. This is
society’s gospel. This is an errant,
deceptive culture that awards perfection, self-sufficiency and power. The great deception is that when you chase
after that, you believe you don’t need a Savior. The greater insult though, are the times when
I strive for exactly that, in Christ’s name. And I do that way too often!
Honestly, I don’t believe I’m as alone in this as I
thought I was that night. If you
struggle with seductively, dangerous encounters with pride that have you being
right in wrong ways, I’m telling you to join me in the trenches with
Jesus. If you are willing, he will
transform that pride into humility, because our humble Savior invites our
imperfections, relieves us of our self-sufficiency and most of all delights in
our obedience. This is the trench work he offers - this is the trench work that
continues to transform me - this is the messy, ugly, honest place that grace
calls home and my heart calls safe.
The holy discontent I had with this experience wasn’t
about the actual trench work, it was about the lack of coverage in the ministry
world for certain heart issues. The
heart issues that make us offenders instead of victims. Why does this happen? Are the voices not loud enough? Am I not
looking in the right places? Are sins of weakness more accepted than sins of
strength, making it intimidating to carry that banner? Aside from the Holy Spirit and the reminders
from pastors, I guess I was just hoping for others that could send me back to
the trenches. I have more questions than
answers, that’s for sure, and to those of you working in similar trenches, it
would be great to know that I’m not alone.
By coming together we can unmask the face of pride and its family of
offenders that work to separate us from God and from each other. Redemption
happens in the trenches; let’s shine the light on some of the most essential work
God is eager to do with us. Because you know he will, and it’s only by his
Spirit that we can!
