When My Weakness Meets the Gospel

I’m not sure how to begin writing again, but today is the day I finally am going to write again. It’s already decided- Do you hear that, Fingers? No turning back now.

This past week I have encountered the Gospel in a whole new way. Maybe this post will be easier to publish if I take you on a bit of my journey these past two weeks…

You see, this weekend I struggled with sin (like everyone does every day). How is that hard for me to say? It is so natural for us to sin and to know everyone is a sinner, but when it comes to admitting sin I feel like I feel like it would be better to put a blanket over my head before I start speaking. I want to hide right away. Anyways, back to my story. For some reason this time when I found myself in this gray area between right and wrong- between God’s way and a different way- I felt completely crushed by the weight of my sin and my choice to pick my own crooked way. And as the day carried on I began to sink deeper and deeper into this hole where I just felt undeserving because of this choice I had clearly made. So being a good little Gordon student, I jumped into my school work as a distraction from the weight of all of this, and I picked up a book I had to read for class.

The book is called “When Tolerance Is No Virtue” by Stan Gaede, a professor of one of my sociology courses this semester. It talks a lot about what it means to be a Christian, and how a Christian ought to be, in an age where multiculturalism and pluralism abound.

Towards the end there was a certain part where he wrote this:

“We live in a world that not only separates knowing from doing, but increasingly considers that normal. We see this in the home where families watch the evening news and yawn… We see it in the Church where Christians find it easy to affirm certain beliefs but then live as if they didn’t matter. We have become knowledge consumers, not responsible knowers.”

I may be taking him out of context (or putting his words into a very specific scenario), so forgive me if you have read this book or have more thoughts than i do on the topic. But Dr. Gaede’s words struck me so deeply. In that moment I felt like my sin- my choice- was me turning my back on God. It was saying, “I know Your way, God, and I know what You have done for me… and I know when I was four years old I told you I would give You everything in my life, but right now I just want to do it my way.” That choice made me so undeserving of all He has ever given me. It made me undeserving of being at Gordon, undeserving of being a Resident Advisor who is meant to walk alongside and serve other people, undeserving of going into the social work field where seeking justice is a daily thing for the benefit of others. How could I know with everything in me that Christ conquered the grave for me and yet not live differently? How could I not live perfectly for Him then, not at all straying to the right or to the left?

Oh man, Gaede’s words hit on something deep in my on that night.

 Our next class was a continuation of this topic, and came in the middle of a battle between my thoughts. I am passionate about bringing justice to this world, but I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I have done nothing to deserve the things I have. What a lesson in humility… I felt as if this was the moment when my weakness came face to face with the Gospel. Because the fact is I don’t deserve these things at all. God has loved me in my mess and has poured out these things on me.

Isn’t that the Good News? I deserve nothing, yet that doesn’t stop Him from loving me, from blessing me, from calling me His own. What a mighty God we serve- a God who casts our sin as far as the east is from the west. When my weakness meets the Gospel He casts it far away and says “I have forgiven you and I have forgotten these things because I love you.” What a relief to be free from living under the weight of our sins. Amen?

I know my words were abstract in this post. But I need to start writing again. Experiencing the Gospel in a whole new way has been profound for me- more profound than my little words can capture. Thanks for reading, friends:)