One Thing About Christianity that Still Bothers Me
I was finishing changing my daughter’s
diaper when she spat up, ruining the outfit I had just wrestled her back into.
Seeds of impatience sprouted out of my mouth: “Your timing sucks,” I told my uncomprehending
daughter. After switching out her clothes, I brought her out of the room, only
to encounter our cat in front of me, seemingly determined to get
tangled up in my legs as I walked. Juggling a baby and dribbling a cat aren’t activities
you want to combine.
“You’re really stupid, you know
that?” I barked at the cat. (Huh. Pun not intended.) In response, my wife Shannon
put out her arms and asked for the baby, advising me to take my shower so I could
be alone for a while.
Being alone didn’t do much for me.
I knew my anger was unjustified. I knew I had sinned in my heart, not to
mention my mouth. I knew I needed to repent. The thing was, I couldn’t quite
get over the fact that I had gotten so terribly upset over so small an
incident.
On the drive to our church
meeting, Shannon asked me how I was doing. I answered with something akin to a
shrug and a grunt. You see, I had been confronted with one aspect of
Christianity that sometimes sticks in my craw: the enormously good news of the
gospel reveals just how enormous my sin really is. It rips off the façade of
righteousness I love to play dress-up in. It reminds me that God draws near,
not to the self-sufficient and morally upright, but to the contrite and lowly
in heart (Isa. 57:15). It reveals just how desperate I am for God’s redeeming
and renewing grace to rescue me from myself.
I am very much unlike the Apostle
Paul. In Philippians 3, he lists all the reasons why he has a right to consider
himself an upstanding citizen of the world. He has a lot going for him. But
instead of clinging to this list as a source of confidence, he says he would
rather treat it like dung. He would rather trade in his greatest
accomplishments and be left with nothing. Why? So he could be found in the
righteousness of another—namely, Jesus.
I, on the other hand, often prefer
dung cakes to humble pie. I don’t like admitting that I’m dust (Ps. 103:14). I
don’t like admitting that all my efforts at self-salvation are as productive as
a woman giving birth to wind (Isa. 26:18). I don’t like admitting that my
cleanest and most righteous deeds are, in and of themselves, menstrual rags
(Isa. 64:6).
But in asserting my own false
sense of righteousness, I effectively cut myself off from the righteousness God offers to me in Christ. Sure, the gospel puts me in a bad light, but only
to position me to receive the light of God’s gracious countenance. I can’t have
the latter without the former.
So what happened in the car on the
way to church? The Holy Spirit graciously prompted my wife to speak to me. Her
encouragement went something like this: “You said our daughter’s timing sucked, but she
doesn’t even have timing yet. So
really, what you were saying was that God’s timing sucked. So it’s interesting
that God perfectly timed our marriage and our daughter and perfectly timed
Christ’s coming into the world so that He could forgive you for saying His
timing sucked.”
Through my wife’s gracious words
of law and gospel, God broke my heart and brought me once again to contrition and
humility. I was able to experience godly sorrow and genuine repentance, which,
as God has promised, leads to true, regret-free salvation (2 Cor. 7:10). I may
be a stubborn sinner, and I may sometimes balk at the path to sweet
forgiveness, but thanks be to God that His grace is greater than all my sin!