From Bored to Blown Away

My wife and I are going through a mentored "program" called Sonship, given through World Harvest Mission. The basic goal of the course is to help individuals and couples understand their proper relationship to the Lord - as sons and daughters and not orphans. They do this by applying the glorious truths of the bible to the "nitty gritty" situations of every day life.

The course is far from easy. As they like to put it, head theology is pretty simple to intellectually understand and know. But, for me, making the transition from head theology to heart theology feels nothing short of impossible.

The truths of the gospel are so simple and basic that at every moment, I am tempted to either twirl my thumbs in boredom or be profoundly effected as those truths trickle into my stubborn heart. I know that I am righteous in Christ, but do I feel it? I know that I am a son, but why do I act like an orphan so much? I know that my wife is a daughter of God, but why do I treat her otherwise at times?

Sure, we can always dive the depths of systematic theologies. But diving and dwelling where most don't swim, has been an escape mechanism to get away from people. It has been my attempt to keep from facing the reality that I just don't love people well.

A few weeks ago I was up to my orphan ways, and consequently without the company of my wife. I called our mentor an hour before we were supposed to meet to let him know what was going on. After listening to me and asking a few questions here and there, he began to point out to me the parts of my life that were less than holy. Like a surgeon, he skillfully peeled back the layers of my life and exposed what was really wrong with me.

And then he told me that this course is not designed to fix me. That it was probable we would get to the end and I would continue to act the way I was acting. As my heart sunk, I kept listening. He said that the purpose of the course was to expose our need for Christ. It was to show why we do not deserve his presence and acceptance; why we should be orphans and not sons and daughters.

After an hour of conversing, he told me to stand in awe, that in light of all of my sin and selfishness, the Lord delights in me because of Christ.

I broke. My cold heart bled a bit. My dry eyes wept a bit.

You will have to excuse the personal tone of this post, as well as many others as of late. I am going through a transition. For too long I have trusted that learning a new theological fact was the same as leaning upon Christ the foundation. I have confused knowledge with faith, learning with love. I have made every religious attempt to exempt myself from the very category that Jesus came to save - sinners who are sick and needy (Luke 5:31-32).

I am reminded now of the glorious truth that we don't have to be well to come to Jesus. We don't have to be right to be righteous. And we don't have to be perfect to be perfectly accepted. Christ did it all and gives it all. And because he does, as the old hymn so gloriously confesses, "We need him every hour."