The "Rogue" Theologian

You should just give up on me, Lord. I can’t fathom why You, the holy and righteous Sovereign of the universe, would choose to associate with someone like me. The depth of my depravity, the weight of my sin, the breadth of my failures…all of this, plus ten thousand other reasons, should be more than enough for You to simply wash Your holy hands of me. You should discard me. You should cast me out. You should turn Your undefiled eyes from the gaze of my existence. I am simply too much. I cannot possibly be worth the agony of Calvary.

That is an honest assessment of the rightful state of my soul and the true cry of desperate confusion from the mind of a ragamuffin.

We talk a lot in Christianity about the reality of the torn vail. The place in the temple where the presence of God was shielded from the unworthy people who had abandoned God countless times. We see it as a striking victory of the power of God in the moment of Christ’s sacrificial completion of His unimaginable work on the cross. We rightly see it as the moment when communion with the Almighty became a deeply more intimate and personal experience. The torn vail exemplifies the access we now have to the Author of our very lives.

Yet, tonight, as I lay in bed wondering why God would tolerate me…why He would pursue me, I was struck by another side of the vails removal. A moment that felt much like what I imagine Adam and Eve felt in the moments after the fall, when God came to walk with them, and the shame of their nakedness caused them to hide. I know who I am. I know my thoughts. I know my sins. I know my failures. I know the countless ways in which I, for all intents and purposes, smack God in the face with the flagrance of my disobedience to His holy commands. I know just how naked I am in the sight of a holy God.

That torn vail has opened a unique possibility to come face-to-face with my Maker. Where there should be joy inexpressible, there is instead fear and shame and guilt and disbelief. No amount of right theology or proper exegesis can cover the haunting hurt of my own depravity being viewed by the One who somehow calls me His own. And in these moments of greatest disillusionment, moments marked by sheer dumbfounded confusion, I am strikingly aware of both the cost of Christ calling me His own and of my repeated failures to hold fast to the standard of conduct and heart which is the true mark of a transformed heart.

We all know the words well. “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love”. These words seem both stingingly accurate and unmistakably heart-wrenching. I know what it cost, as best any human can, for the God who made me to also buy me back. And, perhaps, the most astounding part is that He bought me back because of me. His sacrifice on the cross was because of my continual failures. His sacrifice on the cross was because I can’t get it right. His sacrifice on the cross was, without reservation, because of me.

And so, I sit here wondering…why haven’t You given up on me, Lord? I know that in so many ways, I have given up on myself. So, it strikes me as perplexing and inconceivable that You wouldn’t also give up on me. I know that I have given You more than enough reason, more than enough opportunity, and more than enough time. I have grieved Your Spirit. I have mocked Your goodness. I have dishonored Your character. And yet, Your faithfulness never falters.

I don’t have a good answer, at least not one which satisfies the aching I feel from the depth of my failings. Yet, I hold tightly to the knowledge that my salvation is not based on my merit. That God’s pursuit of my heart is not contingent on my heart being perfected. That the very notion of being worth of not giving up on is so far removed from reality that is sounds stupid to even say. Still…this is where I sit. Stuck between knowing and understanding, between hoping and believing…because I will never understand why He still chooses me every day. I still think He should just give up on me…but I am exceedingly glad He hasn’t.

The future is a scary thought. An ever-present reality that never quite seems to arrive. The harder I search for what’s coming next, or the longer I gaze into the vast horizon of tomorrow, the less certainty I feel in the workings of today turning into the realities of tomorrow. My head rushes with the flurry of a thousand unanswered questions.

I turn to questions about my kids. Will my kid’s turn out ok? Will they love Jesus? Will they thrive in spite of the trauma of their upbringing? Will they have happy and stable marriages? Will they know that I loved them fiercely? Will they see that every sacrifice was worth it because they were the reason I kept going?

Then I wonder about myself. Is this degree worth it? Will I have a career that I love and can be proud of? Will I find love again? Will I grow old alone? Will the tomorrow I dream of ever be the today I live? Will the hope that once welled within my soul return without the scars of defeat? Will the chemistry of my brain ever allow me to simply enjoy the moment?

Then comes the guilt. “Lord,” I ask, “how can I say I truly trust You when I have so many doubts about the future? When I wonder, far too often, if I am even counted among Your elect?” I beg, in daily prayer, for the Lord to give me the hope of assurance. I plead for the solidity of contentment. I long for the Lord to make me content in the places I am, so that my joy is found not in the trappings of life but in the powerful and precious devotion of my King. I want to be content so badly…but I war with contentment so deeply.

My sister and I were talking today, and I was reminded that too often our weak and weary hearts, still being transformed by the miraculous grace of our loving Savior, can be prone to division. “Lord, I want my heart to be different, but somehow, I also don’t.” I don’t want to hang on to anger or bitterness or frustration or rage or sadness or despair, but they often feel justified in the middle of the tragedy that is so often my life. This is the very war that Paul was talking about in his letter to the Roman church. The familiar refrain of doing that which I do not want to do and not doing that which I do want to do. It’s the very curse at the core of living in a fallen world with a divided heart.

And with that reminder, I am immediately flung back into the reality that none of the transforming work that is happening in my heart, or in my life, is the product of my own making. It is all but the grace and mercy of the One who bought me. With that reality, I take comfort in knowing that my job is to strive for renewal, to beg for contentment in the Lord, but that the ultimate working out of that reality lies squarely in the hands of One far more qualified than I could ever be. God hasn’t called me to fix myself or to have all the answers or to rest in the certainty of a future I know nothing about. He has called me to rest in the knowledge of His sustainment, the perfection of His work on the cross, and the certainty of His promise to complete that which He started.

So, with fear in my flesh, but certainty in my bones, I bow before the throne of grace. Maybe I did mess up again. Maybe I am worried about things I have no business worrying about. Maybe I am discontent with the circumstances of life. Maybe I do wonder why such a perfect and holy King would save such a worthless ragamuffin like me. But, and I say this with expounding humility dear friends, not one thing which I say or do or think or feel has any impact on the work that Christ alone completed long before I took my first breath. Do I have a responsibility to live a life of honor that brings glory to God? YES! But, by His grace alone, and not by the work of my flesh…because I cannot accomplish anything apart from the guiding of His sovereign hand.

How can I come to You again? How can I look to Your face knowing what I’ve done? How can I pretend that such costly grace is so easy to come by? How can I stand before Your righteous throne and ask for Your mercy one more time? How can I expect Your love to cover another sin?

If we’re honest, we’ve all asked these questions before…at the very least, I have. We all wrestle with the flesh. We all lose that match more than we would care to admit. And so, it can be tempting to look at the grace so freely lavished on us and wonder how we could ever ask for anymore. Whether the sin was a genuine slip up, an accident if you will, or a habitual pattern that has still not died at the hands of true repentance, it is easy to understand how our hearts could be so bitterly torn between longing to sit at the feet of Jesus weeping and wanting to run and hide ourselves like the child afraid of the wrathful response.

There are times in my life when all I want to do is run to the arms of Jesus and experience the love and grace and mercy that I know I do not deserve but cannot imagine living without. There are other times when all I want to do is run as far and as fast as humanly possible from the face of the Father who I imagine is once again grieved and angered by the sin that so easily ensnared me. It can be a dizzying feeling to bounce between wanting to be embraced by God and fearing the embrace of the One whose holiness I once again failed to honor.

I need reminders, as we all do, of the truth of God. Yes, He is holy. Yes, He is righteous. Yes, He has a standard which He has applied as the barometer for our lives in Christ. Yes, He is grieved by our sins. Yes, He is rightly angered at our blatant, and even not, disregard for His ways.

Yet…

He is also merciful. He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He is gentle and lowly. He is gracious and kind. He is good.

I have had a lot of conversations in recent weeks that seem to somehow come around to the idea that two things, which seem to be opposites, can both be true at the same time. I can need to write more of my dissertation but also need rest to be able to function well as a dad. I can need to be serving those around me and still need to be served myself. I can need to be quiet and yet still speak truth. I can need to be patient in timing and still proceed in working. Much like these human scenarios exhibit the reality of two seemingly opposite realities being true simultaneously, there is a truth to the character of God which is seemingly opposed yet miraculously not.

God can be angered by our sin and still long for us to come to Him. God can be grieved by our circumstances and still sovereign over our lives. God can be both holy and approachable. God can be both full of wrath and full of mercy. Two opposites…can still both be true. And that is where we must be most aware of the goodness of God. The proverbial line in the sand for the believer is not drawn between us and God, it is drawn between us and sin. God does not put a barrier between His children and His love; He puts a barrier between His children and His wrath. And in those moments when we most long to run from the Savior because we have walked squarely into the arms of sin, God is calling us to run to Him so that He can make us clean again.

Our righteousness will never be more than that which has been imparted to us through the completed work of Christ on the cross of Calvary. We will never have, in our own workings, the ability to stand before the Holy One and express enough remorse or enough distress to have Him look upon us with mercy. Yet, the glorious truth of the Gospel and the unimaginable reality for the believer is that God is not seeing us when we approach the throne of grace. He is seeing the spotless Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. He is seeing the powerfully imputed work of Christ on behalf of this hapless and hopeless wretch. He is seeing the beauty of the atonement applied to the wayward and the lost. This is the most amazing grace which has taken captive the hearts of man. It is an unfathomable reality which has been written in blood and is sealed for all eternity. There is no greater gift than the gift of the righteousness of Christ applied to a ragamuffin like me.

So, my dear friend, when the temptation to run from the throne of grace takes hold of your heart, remember that the very heart which feels so unworthy of grace has been made to feel even that unworthiness only by the regeneration of that heart through Christ. In other words, the very fact that you want to run from the throne often indicates a renewal of the very heart which is being transformed by the very God who we are afraid to approach. Therefore, we must run not from the throne of grace but straight to it and into the arms of our loving Savior. Not because we deserve it or because we know that we really wont mess it up again, but because of the costly price He paid to give us the freedom to run to Him. So run, with all of your heart and all of your failures, to the open arms of Jesus…because, I promise, that’s exactly where He wants you to be.

I crave connection…but I live in isolation. I long for assurance…but I stand in the unknown.

How is that even possible Joseph? You have four kids with you all the time. You have countless people who call you friend. You have family who love you. You’re a member of a congregation that accepts you at your worst and at your best. And, most importantly, you have a Savior who is never absent. What world exists where you feel like you live in isolation?

I find myself having the above conversation a lot…at least in my own head. I know that I am surrounded by people. People who love and care for me. People who long to live in community with me. People who do, in some very basic and everyday ways, live in community with me. Still, I find myself too often living in this feeling of unimaginably sad and hopeless isolation. This feeling of being so close, yet still so very far away. This feeling of assurance that is being demolished by the feeling of uncertainty. That same old feeling of almost…but not quite.

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about that particular phrase in the past months. With it comes this unshakable feeling that maybe I have gotten everything wrong in this life. Maybe the false starts and the quick endings have all been the product of me misunderstanding what’s right in front of me. Maybe I have gotten it all so terribly wrong, experienced such immense heartbreak, traveled such dark roads, and lived in such lonely isolation and uncertainty because I have fundamentally misread the world around me or the people that come close or the opportunities that arise.

For clarity, lets hone in on two major realities which form the landscape of my confusion: my doctorate and my love life.

When I finished my masters, I had a trusted mentor and friend ask me what I was going to do next? He asked how I was going to serve the Lord and make an impact on the Kingdom that would outlast me? He challenged me to seek God’s face and to find out where He was pointing and what He would have me to do. So, I did. I spent time in prayer and thought. I sought counsel and asked questions. I did everything you’re supposed to do before you make a major move that will be costly and shape the trajectory of your future. When the die fell and the reality of God’s will came crashing down like a ton of bricks, I knew that if I was going to train the next generation of church leaders, I needed to complete my doctorate so that I would have the requisite academic credentials to go along with my life experience. So…here I sit, three years later, working on the dissertation that will complete my doctoral studies. Yet, I am plagued with the question…was this really what He called me to do? Have I wasted precious financial resources and sacrificed time with my kids simply because I misunderstood the call of God? Could this really be how the chips fall?

Then there is the dumpster fire that is my love life. As if a failed marriage wasn’t bad enough…I have had more than my fair share of false starts and tumultuous roller coaster rides in the relationship arena. Shortly after my divorce, my pastor (at the time) told me that I “better hurry up and find another wife while my kids are still cute.” I don’t know how much of that statement was a joke and how much of it was truth masked in humor…but I know that it set an expectation in my head that my heart wasn’t ready for at the time. Fast forward 5 years, and I am immensely ready to find someone I can spend the rest of my days with. I have had a few relationships in the past few years. Some ended in heartbreak and some in a sense of quiet relief. But all have chipped away at the belief that I am even supposed to be married again. What if this longing deep within my heart for someone to share this life with is nothing more than another desire that God plans to leave unfulfilled? What if I was never meant to be in relationship in the first place? But also, why do my kids have to suffer and miss out on seeing a godly marriage in their home because of my inability to save my first marriage or attain my second? Why do they too have to live in the almost…but not quite?

So now what? What do I do with all these questions? What do I do with all of this uncertainty? Of course, I take it to the throne of grace. Of course, I submit to that which the Lord ordains or allows. Of course, I learn to sit in the uncomfortable long enough to name it. But what if the very gut or heart or mind that I have tried to surrender to the Lord is just lying to me? What if my surrender isn’t enough because I am missing a colossal piece of the puzzle and I don’t even know that that piece looks like? What if this faith that I am clinging to with every fiber of being which I have left is not enough to really know the heart of God? What if I keep messing up by continuing to walk a road when I don’t even know if it’s the right road to be on?

I don’t usually end this way, mainly because I have no clue who is ever reading these musings…but today is going to be different. If you have a moment, seek the Lord. Ask Him to bring clarity in the chaos and peace in the uncertainty. Ask Him to do what only He can do…because I have long since reached the end of myself.