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I grew up in rural Mississippi. I grew up in a traditional Southern Baptist Church in a small community. Attendance typically maxed out at no more than 70 (Easter, Christmas and a few times during softball season when team members were trying to squeeze in their required Sunday appearances to stay eligible for Tuesday night games). Most weeks, we had between 20-40 in the pews. I was related to half of t hem. It was a legalistic environment, complete with the vein-popping, pacing and sweating, overly zealous pastor prowling the pulpit and calling out sinners. I remember one Sunday when we learned Rock and Roll was evil, was of the devil. We dissected (literally) the song Hotel California by the Eagles, calling out all the references to drugs, the occult, the devil himself.
It’s not that I’m ragging on the church where I came to know Jesus, where I grew up and was equipped with a working knowledge of the Bible, where I actually had a couple of mentors who deeply shaped me, but it was an oppressive, stifling experience and emblematic of what can go wrong with organized religion. You were judged harshly there. Gossiped about for indescretions large or small. And there were a few occassions when I think our congregation just simply made bad choices with the best of intentions. Rock and roll is not the enemy. I’ve known that for years. The enemy is me. I am most often the one who steps between me and God. I am the reason for stunted growth in Christ. It’s too easy to point at enviornmental factors as the focus of our battle, when the most trying, difficult battles we wage occur within our own skin.
We are frail, imperfect, broken. Hung together by a single thin thread. One drop away from running out of gas, one wrong turn away from devastation. Our skin is pulled tightly over a bulging, seething pile of imperfection, and even then blemishes appear on the outside as a signal of the darkness within.
Yet, we are the perfect vessel for His purpose, fully capable to part waters, to scale mountains, with strength that endures all the adversity, misery, anguish and despair that this earthly existence can flow our way. Even in our weakness lies the potential for change.
But most of us walk around with our happy face and within we are battling alone. We are taught to show no weakness, not even in the midst of other Christians. Everything is fine, just fine. We are afraid to set the demons free and release them in the open where others can help us fight. We are afraid of being judged, of being misunderstood, of losing what we have. Of hurting others. For pride. For guilt. For fear that no one can or will help us. But until we confess the weight of our heart, until we pull the dagger, healing can’t begin.
Have you known anyone to do this? It helped them, didn’t it? I’ve seen it first hand. It helped others too. We are not alone. That is a lie that Satan would have us believe. That it is better to bury our transgressions in the dark of night than expose them to the light of a new day. Soon, when I’m brave enough to follow this advice for myself, I’ll begin conquering everything big and small that’s holding me back from being a better Christian.
If I’m truly born again, saved, redeemed, shouldn’t evil desires be a thing of the past? If I am praying for help, seeking assistance with transgressions in my life, but at the same time still lusting for the very sin I’m trying to overcome, am I being insincere? How do I overcome it? What’s my motivation? I think it’s important to understand that the need for the sin is masking a need within.
It’s sort of like a medication. Sin is the symptom, so I need to get to the source. I need to stop dwelling on the sin and trying to battle it head on. Instead I need to focus on what’s behind it. What’s driving it. What’s crying out deeper within me. I also need to get better at understanding how to give it up to God. I think we tend to suppress when we need to release. I tend to suppress it, to push it way down and make it be “out of sight, out of mind.” Instead, I’d be better served to release it, to let it go, to truly give it up to God.
Why is that so hard by the way? It’s so much easier just to stuff it down deep inside and to wrestle with the sin, the symptom and try to NOT do it for a day, and then two, and then three, until we “master it” and then we’re cured. That is so counterproductive as I’m learning. Pointless. A losing battle. I am still dealing with every “sin” I was dealing with when I embarked on this journey months ago. Mostly because I always default to suppressing the issue instead of releasing it.
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