Mercy

Mercy

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Phil 4:6)

There’s a guilt that sits in the soul like a lead balloon. There’s a guilt that says, “I did bad,” and then there’s a guilt that concludes, “I am bad.” Have you ever had that deep, dark guilt? Ever come face-to-face with a version of you that you’ve never known before? If so, what sucked you under? A one-night stand? Take what wasn't yours? Or, maybe, not so much a moment in life but a season of it. You failed as a parent. You blew your career. You misspent your youth. You squandered your money. The result? Guilt. And the consequence of that guilt? Anxiety. Surprised? Lists of anxiety triggers typically include busy schedules, unrealistic demands, or rush-hour traffic. But behind the frantic expressions on the faces of people you see every day is unresolved regret. Maybe that face is you. Interestingly, humanity's first occasion for anxiety can be attributed to guilt. "That evening [Adam and Eve] heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden; and they hid themselves among the trees." (Gen. 3:8)

What happened to the first family? Until Genesis 3:8 there was no indication that they ever felt any fear or trepidation. They’d certainly never hidden from God before. That’s because they had nothing to hide. "The man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame." (Gen. 2:25) But then came the serpent and the forbidden fruit. The first couple said “Yes” to the serpent's temptation, and “No” to God. And when they did, their world collapsed like a house of cards. They scurried into the bushes and went into hiding, feeling a mixture of both shame and dread. Covered in crumbs from the cookie jar they’d been told to avoid, they engaged in a flurry of cover-ups. Note the sequence. Guilt quickly followed by anxiety. Adam and Eve didn't know how to process their failure, and neither do we.

Granted, we don't duck into the bushes – we have more sophisticated ways to deal with our guilt. We numb it, for instance. With a bottle of Smirnoff. With a little Internet pornography. With drugs. With a rendezvous at the motel. And then we deny it. Pretend we never stumbled. Concoct a plan to cover up the bad choice. One lie leads to another, then another. We adjust the second story to align with the first. And before long our knee-jerk reaction to any question is, “How can I keep up the charade?” Or, we minimize it. We didn't really sin. We just lost our way, or got caught up in the moment, or took the wrong path, or had a lapse in judgment. Others decide to bury it. Suppress the guilt beneath a mound of work and a calendar of appointments. The busier we stay, the less time we spend with the people we’ve come to dislike the most: ourselves.

Of course, we can always punish it. Cut ourselves. Hurt ourselves. Beat ourselves up. Flog ourselves. And if it’s not with whips, then it’s with rules. More rules. Long lists of things to do and observances to keep. A painful penance. Pray more. Study more. Give more. Show up earlier. Stay up later. And then there’s always avoiding even the mention of it. Just don't bring it up. Don't tell the family, the friends, the buddies. Keep everything on the surface and hope the Loch Ness monster of guilt keeps lingering in the deep. Or, we simply redirect it. Lash out at the kids. Take it out on the spouse. Yell at the employees, or the driver in the next lane.

Some choose to offset it. Determine never to make another mistake. Build the perfect family. Create the perfect career. Score perfect grades. Be the perfect Christian. Everything has to be perfect – hair, car, tone of voice. Always in control, and absolutely maniacal when it comes to slip-ups or foul-ups, by ourselves or others. Finally, some just throw in the towel and embrace it. We didn't get drunk – we are drunks. We didn't screw up – we are screw-ups. We didn't just do bad – we are bad. Bad to the bone bad. We might even take pride in our “badness” because it's only a matter of time until we do something bad . . . again. Adam and Eve hid behind fig leaves, bushes and lies. Not much has changed.

So what kind of person does unresolved guilt create? An anxious one. Forever hiding, running, denying, pretending. Unresolved guilt will turn you into a miserable, weary, angry, stressed-out, fretful, anxious hot mess. In a psalm David probably wrote after his affair with Bathsheba, the king said: When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. (Ps. 32:3-4) Interpretation? Guilt sucks the life out of our souls. But grace and mercy restores them, and the apostle Paul clung on to both.

To the same degree that he believed in God's sovereignty, he also relied on God's mercy. No one had more reason to feel the burden of guilt than Paul. He’d orchestrated the deaths of Christians. He was the first century version of a terrorist, taking believers into custody and then spilling their blood. "Paul was like a wild man, going everywhere to devastate the believers, even entering private homes and dragging out men and women alike and jailing them." (Acts 8:3) And he was a legalist to the core. Before he knew Christ, Paul had spent a lifetime trying to save himself. His salvation depended on his perfection and on his performance. You can read Paul’s resume in Philippians 3:4-6. It’s very impressive. So impressive that Paul had blood on his hands and religious diplomas on his wall. But then came the Damascus Road experience when Jesus appeared. So much for the resume.

Once Paul saw Jesus, he literally couldn't see anymore – at least for a time. But there were other things he couldn’t see. He couldn't see the value in his resume anymore. He couldn't see the merit in his merits, or the worth in his good works anymore. He couldn't see reasons to boast about anything he’d done anymore. And he couldn't see any option except to spend the rest of his life talking less about himself and more about Jesus. As a result, he became the great poet of grace. "But all these things that I once thought very worthwhile – now I've thrown them all away so that I can put my trust and hope in Christ alone." (Phil. 3:7) In exchange for self-salvation, God gave Paul righteousness. "Now I am right with God, not because I followed the law, but because I believed in Christ." (Phil. 3:9)

Paul gave his guilt to Jesus. He didn't numb it, deny it, minimize it, bury it, punish it, avoid it, redirect it, or embody it. He surrendered it. As a result, he would write, "I am still not all I should be, but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us." (Phil. 3:13-14) So what would the apostle say to a guilt-laden adult or teenager? Maybe something like, "Rejoice in the Lord's mercy. Trust in his ability to forgive. Abandon your attempts at self-salvation or justification. No more hiding behind fig leaves. Throw yourself upon the mercy and grace of Christ, and Christ alone."

A happy saint is one who is, simultaneously, aware of the severity of sin and the immensity of God’s grace. It’s not a cheap grace, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would describe in his book, The Cost of Discipleship. Sin is not diminished, nor is God's ability to forgive it. The saint simply dwells in grace, not in guilt. This is the tranquil soul. God's grace is the fertile soil out of which courage sprouts as Paul would later tell Titus, "God's readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation's available for everyone! . . . Tell them all this. Build up their courage." (Titus 2:11, 15) The benefit of being a great sinner is dependence upon a great grace – a forgiveness that is too deep to be plumbed, and too high to be summited. You have never been more or less saved than the moment you were first saved. Not one bad deed can deduct from your salvation any more than one good deed can enhance it. Our salvation has nothing to do with our work, and everything to do with the finished work of Christ on the cross.

Do you know this kind of grace? If not, then maybe that’s the source of your anxiety. Perhaps you thought the problem was your calendar, your marriage, or your job. Maybe it’s unresolved guilt. So don't indulge it. Don't drown in the bilge of your own condemnation. There’s a reason why a car’s windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror – your future matters considerably more than your past. God's grace is greater than your sin. What you did was not good, but your God is good. And he will forgive you. He’s ready to write a new chapter in your life.

In one of Henri Nouwen's books, he wrote about the lesson of trust he learned from a family of trapeze artists known as the Flying Rodleighs. He visited with them for a time after watching them fly through the air with such elegant poise. When he asked one of the flyers the secret of trapeze artists, the acrobat gave this reply: “The secret is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. When I fly to Joe [my catcher], I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron. . . . The worst thing the flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher. I am not supposed to catch Joe. It's Joe's task to catch me. If I grabbed Joe's wrists, I might break them, or he might break mine, and that would be the end for both of us. A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.”

In the great trapeze act of salvation, God is the catcher and we’re the flyers. We trust. Period. We rely solely upon God's ability to catch us. And as we do, a wonderful thing happens: we fly. Your Father has never dropped anyone, and he’s not going to start with you. His grip is sturdy and his hands are open. As the apostle proclaimed, "And I know the Lord will continue to rescue me from every trip, trap, snare, and pitfall of evil and carry me safely to His heavenly kingdom. May He be glorified throughout eternity. Amen." (2 Tim. 4:18)

Place yourself entirely in his care. And as you do, you’ll find that it’s possible – yes, possible – to be anxious for nothing.

Grace,

Randy

Mercy - Audio/Visual