One of the songs providing fuel for my run a few days ago was DC Talk's "What If I Stumble?" It starts with this quote from Brennan Manning:
"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and then walk out the door and deny them by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."
In light of what's been happening at my son's college, Liberty University, the words hit me hard. I can't control the craziness in the world. I can't control what other people do and say. But I can listen and lean in when God says, "Let's work on you."
Here are two things He has invited me this week to meditate on with Him.
First, my own testimony. Do my behaviors match my doctrine? Do I practice what I preach? I am doing a thorough examination to be sure I'm not denying Christ by my lifestyle. I don't have any pool boys hiding in my closet, but what about the way I talk about other people? How do I respond when things don't go my way? Do I live like I trust Jesus?
I've also been thinking about why my testimony matters at all. Are there really people watching me to decide if they'll follow Christ or not? Hard to imagine who that might be. But when I think of the kind of testimony I want to have and why it's important, four sets of watching blue eyes immediately come to mind. My kids have received a lifetime of teaching and preaching from me, and there's nothing more horrifying than to think that I would give them reason to doubt the truthfulness of my message.
If I were to fall into some hidden, unconfessed sin, I would be embarrassed and ashamed for my friends to find out. I would feel sick at the thought of dishonoring my husband and disappointing my mom. But my children? I would be torn to shreds, done in, for my children to see me as a phony and my testimony as a joke. Lord, give me grace, strength, and conviction every day to not betray my witness to my children.
The second thing I'm thinking about this week is related to judgment. I can grab hold of Brennan Manning's words, hop up on my high horse, and scream down to the Christians caught in scandalous sin, "What on earth were you people thinking? Do you have no fear of the Lord?!" Righteous anger is legitimate, but for me, it's just a stone's throw away from violating Jesus's command, "Do not judge lest you be judged."
I am not tempted by drugs or alcohol or elicit sex. I am tempted hourly by self-righteousness, which is just as much a slavemaster as the sins that get more coverage.
I have recently returned to an article that I read this spring on the prophet Daniel's prayer for repentance in Daniel 9. Without any known moral lapses of his own, Daniel prayed, "We have been wicked." "We have sinned and done wrong." "We are covered with shame." "We have turned away."
The author of the article, Jeff Peabody, says this:
"I find myself desperately wanting non-Christians to know what I am not. And that seems to be the trend. We decry the despicable brokenness of other believers and encourage the world to turn away from them and look at us instead for a more palatable, truer depiction of faith. But adopting a wholesale separatist approach feeds the lie that we are intrinsically different sheep from the rest of the flock. It deludes us into believing that our proper theology, superior morality, or enhanced sense of justice make us the keepers of God's full perspective. We lean further and further into our own self-righteousness.
This is where Daniel's prayer is so jarring. Instead of recoiling from the wickedness he sees around him, he places himself squarely in the middle of other people's sin in addition to his own. There is no daylight between his personal failings and those of the larger community."
This is sobering. It pulls me off my high horse into a place of repentance--for my "me sins" and my "we sins." I am not intrinsically different than the other sheep in the flock.
