Tuesday, March 28, 2023 Adventures of a Young Christian Part 5: Good at Guilt

To start at the beginning of this series:
Adventures Part 1

I was already really good at guilt as a non-believer and therefore was rather irked that this new life in Christ should somehow seemed to have resulted in more guilt. Guilt upon guilt upon guilt. I’m one of those people you’ve read about that has an exceedingly sensitive conscience. The phrase “morbid introspection” was crafted for me. How do I get rid of all of this GUILT? Good grief – you’d think I’d never heard the gospel, the good news. I was continually dragging myself before the Lord, moping about my various inconsistencies, my lack of self-discipline, my ever-present sins. I had read Romans 7 a couple weeks before my conversion and it was like word salad to me at that time. What on earth is Paul gassing on about? “For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do…for the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.” Now it was making sense.

Ironically, my journals were starting to read the same way. I was confessing sin, but not getting any relief. There was an uncomfortable logjam of sins clogging the river of my soul. I needed some dynamite and found it one day in 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Somehow I had gotten stuck at the first part of the verse and hadn’t fully appreciated the promise at the end. The Lord was forgiving and cleansing me and I was acting like He wasn’t doing a very good job of it. I decided to take Him at His word. I wrote down a list of all of the things that were on my conscience, confessed them all, and threw the paper away. Confessed, forgiven, cleansed. What a light heart I had after that! It reminds me of a Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy was fretting to Linus about all the rain they were getting, worried that it would flood the whole world. Linus reassured her that according to Genesis 9, God promised Noah that He would never flood the whole world again, the sign of that promise being the rainbow. “You’ve taken a great load off my mind,” Lucy says happily, and Linus responds, “Sound theology has a way of doing that!” Yes, give me some more of that sound theology!!

I was very earnest and zealous for the faith and decided that I should start an evangelistic Bible study as an outreach to the other dietetic interns in the dorm. I made up some invitations and went door to door with them. At each door, I stopped before knocking to acknowledge the little war going on in my head. I shouldn’t do this, they’ll think I’m a kook. But if you don’t tell them, who will? But this seems so intrusive! They might be headed straight to hell – shouldn’t you be more concerned about that? Okay, okay. At each door I prayed and found the courage to knock on that door and hand out the invitation.

The day of the first Bible study arrived and nobody came. Well, actually one person came – it was one of the nursing students that I’d been avoiding. She was a sweet Catholic girl, always talking about the Virgin Mary, whom she referred to only as “The Virgin.” I wasn’t ready to take on that discussion and hadn’t even invited her, but somehow she found out about it and showed up. In addition, she had a strong Hispanic accent and I had a very hard time understanding her, which embarrassed me. Well, I had prayed that the Lord would bring people and since she was the only one who came, it was time to face facts: He invited her and I’d better not send her away. But I’m sorry to tell you that I wanted to. I stalled for a few minutes, but finally resigned myself to the fact that no one else was coming. I was suddenly aware of how ill equipped I was, armed with mostly good intentions. We spent about 10-15 minutes looking at a few Bible verses and that was that. The difference between my idealistic imaginings and God’s plan was a lesson I had to learn the hard way many times over. I’d had a vision of who was coming and how it was going to go and that girl hadn’t been a part of it. But the Holy Spirit imparted some well-deserved shame to my soul for my close-mindedness. Confession, forgiveness, cleansing. Lather, rinse and repeat.

I’ll probably wash this post right outta my hair in the morning.

Next up:
Adventures Part 6