I found myself slightly shaken, when I was 13, by the news that my mum had breast cancer - but my mum's perseverence, faith and sense of humour throughout the whole process helped me to accept what had happened. I even found it possible to accept her death, when I was 19, as something that didn't make much obvious sense, but as something that was God's will nevertheless - and I chose to trust him.
It was a few years later, when I was 22, that my faith was most severely shaken. Suddenly, I resented the restraints of Christianity. Life as a Christian was just too hard; temptations were too strong. The Christians I saw around me were suddenly unimpressive and dull. I felt overwhelmed by doubts, and by self-questioning. How could I possibly have just happened to be born into a family that brought me up in the one true faith? It seemed arrogant and unlikely. I feared death. I feared God. All this was there, but it was mostly the temptation that drove everything. I was fixated on the idea of living for myself alone. I had always considered myself a strong Christian compared to my peers (none of these temptations had really been a problem earlier). I had always thought I could hold onto faith with my own two hands. And so it was a shock to see myself succumbing weakly to the slightest pressure.
I began to feel very cynical and very scornful about others and about myself. This masked the misery somewhat. I was disgusted with myself, yet scornful of my own disgust. I was miserable, and cynical about my misery. I was filled with hatred, and it was mostly towards myself.
I wrote about this on my old blog:
I felt like here I was, wanting these things, letting them take me over, paying no heed to God - and somewhere, far away, my spirit was crying out for help, even though I didn't want it to. Thank you very much, God, but I don't want to be drawn out of the Slough of Despond. It was my body first, from now on, then my soul, and my spirit a clear third. ...
All the while I avoided looking at myself, because I knew I hated what I saw. I am everything, at the moment, that I never wanted to be, and most of all a hypocrite. I haven't done what I have set out to do, yet, but I've never believed that the deed alone makes us sinners. The very fact that I have set out to do something wrong makes me a sinner, not only helpless, but determinedly helpless. I have never had any patience with people who change the Bible to suit what they want to do, and I knew that it was either a case of choosing to turn my back on its teachings, or to give up the path I was about to set foot on. Reject it entirely or accept it all. The fact that I was very close to giving it up made me despise myself as a weakling.
I reluctantly decided that before I made any final decisions, I should try to give Christianity a final chance. I didn't want to hurt my father and my family without doing my best to save my faith. However, this just didn't seem to work. I couldn't bring myself to try hard enough. There seemed to be nothing I could DO to save myself. I also happened to be utterly ashamed. How on earth could I possibly tell anyone about what was going on? Other Christians seemed to be such exemplary people in comparison with me; how could I bear the shame of being a complete failure?
This is what I wrote on my old blog:
I don't know how to describe what happened next. However, I can say that I wondered why God wasn't fighting harder for me. I was aware that I was being tossed around by the devil and wasn't putting up much resistance, but isn't a spiritual battle meant to be tougher than this? Then the following things happened:
Last night
I listened to "Rock of Ages", sung by Chris Rice. This is the most played song on my iPod but I hadn't listened to it for a couple of months, maybe because it's like an arrow into me.
One verse of it in particular:
Nothing in my hand I bring
Simply to thy cross I cling
Naked, come to thee for dress
Helpless, look to thee for grace
Foul, I to the fountain fly
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.
Suddenly, old feelings came flooding back on me. I had felt helpless before, but never this much, and I have certainly never felt this "foul". A strong word but entirely appropriate.
This morning
I was in a bad mood all morning at church, reluctant to talk to anyone. Just before I left, though, my old Sunday School teacher, a woman who quite possibly has a heart the size of Canada, and a freaky spiritual instinct, came up to me, asked me how I was, blah de blah de blah - all lies on my side, of course. Finally: "You know, the Lord has had you in my mind rather a lot for the last couple of weeks."
That was all. No forcing of confidences. But I'm sure she saw a shocked look in my eyes which I quickly hid and was confirmation enough that no, I wasn't just fine. On the other hand, I came to the conclusion that God has been fighting for me and it wasn't just me on my own versus the devil.
[By the way, this woman had never said anything like this to me before, and she has never said it since.]
Tonight
I went along to my church on campus, sceptical that I would hear anything new enough to shock me. A speaker, Chris Green from London, spoke on the servant king of Mark chapter 10, who said:
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give hisNot exactly words I haven't heard before. Although the talk wasn't the same old same old, it did repeat the old gospel message... that we, the scum of the earth, have been given the gift of life by a Saviour who loved us so much, so undeservedly, that he died for us. That, like blind Bartimaeus who asked only for mercy, we too can receive sight. That sin is a stranglehold for which Jesus paid the ransom. [You can listen to the sermon here if you would like.]
life as a ransom for many.
I will always be shocked by the utterly obscenely unlimited grace of God whenever I least expect it. I had never felt so miserable, scummy and unloveable as I did then - and God came to planet Earth to serve me?! To give his life for me?
We sang a song, this one by Stuart Townend, and there was a verse I couldn't sing because I was all choked up and it would be too embarrassing to collapse into tears in front of an entire congregation.
When I'm stained with guilt and sin,
He is there to lift me, heal me and forgive me,
Gives me strength to stand again,
Stronger than I was before.
Why do I forget this? How do I manage to be shocked every time by the depth of God's love? This God we're talking about is the God who has limitless power, who could snuff me out with the lift of a finger - the God who chose to die, so that he could know me.
So with every breath that I am given,
I will sing salvation's song.
And I'll join the chorus of creation
Giving praise to Christ alone.
So now I am:
A little humbler.
A little happier.
A little more determined not to fall away.
A little more grateful to God.
That blog post was written soon after I got home from church that night, and it already seemed like one of my more significant days. Now I look back on it as the most significant day of my life. Yes, I was a Christian before it. But I did not understand my salvation before then. I saw my faith as a choice I had made - well done me, for getting it right - and thanks, God, for being there for me in rough times. The only thing I saw myself lacking was a dramatic story of my life before and after God, the lack of which I slightly resented.
I came out of this experience with the clearest insight I have ever had into my own weaknesses. The complete absence of any power on my part to save myself and to live how I want to live. I saw God working in my life - the faintest whispers of God working in my life, but the sweetest. I saw the centrality of Christ, and his power over both sin and death.
Since then, I've had my ups and downs. I will continue to have my ups and downs. I've learnt a lot. I haven't progressed as much as I'd like to have progressed. I no longer know that I will be a Christian forever and ever because I'm strong. Now, I know that God has me in the palm of his hand and will protect me, because I am his child. "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain." Psalm 139:6
A helpful part of the process for me was when, almost by accident, two of my flatmates and I found out that we had all had major struggles with temptation. We had all been completely ashamed by this, and it took quite some trust of each other on our parts to open up to each other. It should not have been, but it was astonishing to each of us to discover that we were all imperfect people who fell short of God's perfect standard. This taught me a lot. Christians seem to find it embarrassing to admit failings, and in so doing we may be making it harder for struggling Christians to seek help when they are going through a 'trough' period, or for non-Christians to believe they could ever be saved. For this reason, I want to be someone who is honest about my journey. This doesn't mean I will share sordid details of my life with every single person who crosses my path. But I will not lie to them. I will be a Christian whose story of one failure after another can be used to God's glory, because of Jesus' triumph over my failures.
