Steve's Letter: My Sin Is No Longer The Issue!

I planned, this month, to continue with the subject of the hard side of the family. You will remember that I was going to write about three questions: Why can't we all get along? Why can't we all agree? Why can't we all sing the same songs? Basically, how to do all of that without lying, wearing a mask or sacrificing our convictions. I really am going to get back to that.

While that's still a "burr under my saddle," I've been praying and fasting. God led me to...uh...I didn't have time, okay?

Actually, I've been working on an extra chapter for the new book (Three Free Sins, coming out in February). I finished the manuscript weeks ago and it's in the hands of the folks at Howard/Simon & Schuster. But there was a need to say something about the relationship between prayer and being forgiven, thus the extra chapter titled "The Other Side of Silence." Since I've spent hours working on that, I thought I would make it work double duty in my letter to you. So here are the highlights of that chapter.

As I write this, I have an appointment this afternoon to meet with the new president at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Dr. Don Sweeting. I suspect that Don likes to meet with me because I'm a "cynical old preacher" who knows how power works, where the minefields are and the "tricks of the trade" for the seminary corporate culture. He knows that I'm for him in a big way. I'm emeritus at the seminary so I don't have to go to faculty meetings or serve on committees, and I don't have to work with uptight, anal accrediting people. I still teach four or five "modular" courses each year, but I don't even have to do that if I don't want to. I already have more bubble gum than I can chew and, frankly, I don't need the job.

While Don is my friend and I like him a lot, he is also quite intimidating. He is an incredible scholar and I'm not (my doctorates are phony). He was a successful pastor of a large church and I did the best I could in the smaller churches I served. (While I wasn't half bad at it, sometimes I would like to go back and apologize for some of the things I did as a pastor.) He is focused, gifted, articulate and very bright, and I'm doing the best I can.

I'm kind of looking forward to my time with Don, but I also feel a bit uncomfortable. He could always fire me and while I don't need the job, it really wouldn't look good on my record. He may have found out some dirt on me and realized that the idea of my being a professor in his institution is insane. He may have heard from students who don't like me and have threatened to leave the seminary if I don't straighten up. Could be that I'm going to get dressed down for a great variety of issues I don't want to go into with you.

So, while the thought of meeting with Don is pleasant, there is also a side to the meeting that is quite uncomfortable.

Steve, that's neurotic.

I know it. It really isn't any more neurotic than how most of us feel when we meet with God. It's one of the reasons that, instead of praying, we do religious stuff. It becomes a way to avoid an encounter with a God who might not be altogether that happy with us and who could get the lightening bolts out.

God says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways...For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9). It really is a "fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31).

The real God is scary.

Not only is he scary. He can't be conned or manipulated and he knows all the secrets we hide from everybody else. If you tell him that you love him when you don't, you'll serve him when you know it's a lie, or you'll trust him when you would rather trust a drunken sailor, he will laugh at you. If you don't "cuss" in his presence but think "cuss" words, if you're bored out of your skull and pretend that you're not, and if you try to play the religious game with him when he knows the truth, Jesus is going to leave the building.

Then there's the guilt. David cried out to God after his sin of murder and adultery, "For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment" (Psalm 51:3-4).

Okay, the odds are that you've never committed murder, but unless you are an unusually passive personality, you've thought about it. And if you didn't do it, you maybe prayed for someone's death. And if you didn't do that, there is a good chance, if that person did assume room temperature you wouldn't be altogether bereft. If you would never commit adultery, you've probably thought about it. Jesus said in Matthew 5:28 that that "benign" bit of "lustful intent" means you're guilty of the real thing. So your name is David.

Even if your name isn't David, you have your stuff too and it isn't very pretty. When Paul made his great confession, he cried out with the same words every thinking believer cries, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24).

Pascal, the sixteenth century scientist, philosopher and theologian, said, "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me." George Eliot, the nineteenth century Victorian novelist, referenced in her novel, Middlemarch, the silence of the grass growing and the heartbeat of a squirrel. She wrote that if we could really hear, we would be frightened by the "roar" on the "other side of the silence."

I get that.

You do too!

It's why we aren't very silent and why we don't pray much. We may still pray, but it's only a nod in the direction of God with the hope that he isn't ticked and destroy us.

I'm a man of prayer!

That sounds so pious. As I wrote that, I winced. Nevertheless, it's true. I get up quite early each morning and spend a considerable time in prayer. Coffee and Jesus (not necessarily in that order) wake me up when most of you are still in bed. Sometimes I'm on my knees and, at other times, I'm prostrate on the floor before God. Sometimes I use the liturgy from the Church of Scotland's Book of Worship or read from Thomas...Kempis or the Puritans. I worship God and in doing it have this sense that this is why I was created. Not only that. I bring to him every need and every problem, trusting him with it all. I pray for a whole lot of people I care about and do it daily, seeing God do some amazing things. It's a wonderful time!

Wait!

There are other times when I "cuss and spit," when God seems to have taken a vacation to Bermuda and when I play solitaire on my computer instead of praying. Sometimes I tell God what I really think about him and how he runs his universe (not altogether very spiritual comments). I tell him how upset I am about what he's done to people I love. Sometimes I'm just ticked at life in general and have a pity party before God's throne. There are times when I feel so guilty I can hardly breathe (that's because I really am that guilty and have messed up some important areas of my life) and other times when I try to make excuses and rationalize my sin and the people I've hurt. Other times I pray that some people I don't like get the hives. There are times when I doubt and there are times when I feel so alone and afraid that I think I'm not going to pray anymore.

If that confuses you, I understand. In fact, you probably think I ought to be careful in thunderstorms.

I'm running out of space here, so you'll have to read the book when it comes out. (I'm not above selling books every chance I get.) But you know the bottom line.

Paul said, "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6) and "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). One more: "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?" (Romans 8:31-34).

So I'm a man of prayer. You know why? Because my sin is no longer the issue. I don't have to pretend before God or rationalize. I come into his presence as his kid...dressed in the righteousness of Christ.

I don't know about you, but I've tried so hard to do this religious thing. I've probably put more effort into it than you have. If you found out that all of it wasn't true, you could try Wicca or start your own religious or agnostic movement. I've put all of my eggs in this basket and don't have anywhere else to go. I wouldn't have a job and, frankly, I don't know how to do anything else.

So I worked at it really hard...harder than most. I prayed for hours...longer then most. I studied the Bible, even getting an academic degree in the subject...far more than most. I tried really hard to be good and faithful. I even tried to be nice. And then I realized I can't do this anymore. I turned and headed out into the cold darkness. I was sadder and wiser.

Just when the dark engulfed me, I heard the voice. It was the voice that Jesus-because of his unconditional forgiveness-let me hear.

The voice came from the throne:

"Welcome, child. Welcome."

I came running and that's how I became a man of prayer.

You (if you're not already one) can become a man or woman of prayer too!

He told me to remind you.

In His Grip,