Dearest Sister,
Do you ever struggle with a particular sin…over and over again…no seeming victory? Perhaps it’s an obsession or an unhealthy habit. Maybe it’s your tongue gossiping or showing disrespect…Or laziness, or being desensitized to unwholesome shows, or self-righteousness, or materialism, or prayerlessness, or pride…So much to repent of…Unrelenting disquiet in the soul…Embarrassment to come before the Father once more…Do I really belong to the Father? How can I be that new creation, yet still sin so much? Like The Pilgrim in Bunyan’s classic we come to Christ initially with that huge burden strapped to our backs, only to find it rolling down Calvary’s hill when the Spirit opens our spiritual eyes to understand and embrace the gospel, but it would appear we sometimes become uncomfortable without that familiar burden and we start rebuilding that unnecessary heaviness that Jesus has already and perpetually removed from us positionally. Yet, we encumber ourselves with wrong thinking, unhealthy and sinful behaviors. We live in defeat and fear, depression and anxiety. We sin those same sins over and over again wondering where the power for victory lies. We try and try and try. We become exhausted, afraid to go to the Father even though it is to Him we must go for relief and safety.
A prayer by one of the old Puritans says,
“I confess my sin, my frequent sin, my willful sin; all my powers of body and soul are defiled; a fountain of pollution is deep within my nature. There are chambers of foul images within my being; I have gone from one odious room to another, walked in a no-man’s-land of dangerous imaginations, pried into the secrets of my fallen nature. I am utterly ashamed that I am what I am in myself…” Paul speaks to this in Romans 7. He does what he doesn’t want to do and doesn’t do what he does want to do. The Puritan says, “Thou has struck a heavy blow at my pride, at the false god of self, and I lie in pieces before Thee. But Thou has given me another Master and Lord, Thy Son Jesus…” Paul says, “But I thank God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Sister, being weighed down by your sin is good in-so-far that it causes you to turn from self and idolatry and to Jesus. Bear with me as I quote the finish of the Puritan’s prayer: “Save me from the…pride of life, from everything natural to fallen man, and let Christ’s nature be seen in me day by day.” Now, get a visual of this plea. “Grant me grace to bear Thy will without repining [fretting, being discontent], and delight to be [here it is!] not only chiseled, squared, or fashioned, but separated from the old rock where I have been embedded so long, and lifted from the quarry to the upper air, where I may be built in Christ for ever.” Did you see yourself being broken away from the rock, fully hewn into Christ’s sculpture, soaring free from the depths of imprisonment–made like Christ, being freed from besetting sins, slowly but surely?
Author Matt Papa says that we worship our way into sin and so we must worship our way out of it. We need a greater thrill (than the sin). We need a more captivating beauty. We must fix our gaze on Christ and His beauties rather than fixate on our sins. As we do this and are consumed by His excellencies we find ourselves being less and less attracted to the sin. I repeat Paul: “I thank God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
God, our gentle Father, likens Himself to a mother hen or bird securing her babies under her wings. He does this for His children where He protects us from the world and sin and Satan, even from ourselves. I often think of myself in that place of protection and have composed and prayed the following prayer as a result–a prayer of holy resignation, when I finally give up the struggle, trying to conquer sin by my own willpower and run to Him.
Father, I behold your mighty greatness in Your Word and in the remembrance of a myriad acts of mercy and faithfulness to me. I see you beckon me to Yourself. Sometimes I come haltingly, ashamed and afraid. Sometimes I come running with desperation, trembling. Always I come, casting myself at Your feet, grasping them and Your clean robes. And always, You lift me up and wrap your arms around my quivering self and clasp me under your sheltering wings–so safe–and the shaking stops. I peer out from that haven. The world is still roiling, but I am forgiven and secure.
Take heart!
With love,
Cherry