Living in Confession

This isn’t some grand exposition. Rather it is more of a thought I had driving to church today.

Unfortunately, it seems that the longer we have been Christians, the less likely we are to admit our weaknesses. We see in the young and the young in the faith an exuberance that trumps all pretension. Whether they feel they have permission to not have their lives 100% in order or that they are so enamored with the love of Jesus Christ, they seem more willing to lay bare their lives for the sake of fellowship and sanctification. Perhaps as we age and establish more of a history as believers we feel that we should have it all together by now. We always talk about sin in the past tense. We only feel willing to share our struggles with others when we feel that we have properly managed them. How many of our limited years are wasted because we are not honest about our flaws and failings?

John writes in one of his letters: If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

There are few of us who would claim that we don’t still struggle with sin. It would take quite a lot of delusion to claim that we were perfectly following Christ. Yet at the same time, we seem to be becoming less willing to own up to that reality. Contrary to our tendencies, the mark of the mature believer should be an increased willingness to confess our lingering sin and selfishness. The condemnation is gone, dead and buried. Our admission may well disqualify us in the standing of men and women who hold perfection as the requirement of faith. Our honesty might cost us. What we gain however, will far outweigh the cost. What we gain is healing, true community, and a renewed and honest relationship with our Creator.

James writes:

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.

I think it’s time we confessed our sins. I think it’s time we admitted our frailties. It’s probably time to be open about our budgets, kids, marriages, our jobs, and our doubts. Our honesty will cost us. But our dishonesty will cost us far more.

The Tension of Ages

My family and I went out for a fall hike at Stinchfield Woods in Pinckney today. It was a beautiful hike (most of my excursions to Stinchfield have been) though my daughter’s little legs only lasted about two miles. As I drove home through downtown Dexter I passed a cemetery where sporadic, elegant maples towered above the manicured lawns and gravesites. The peak of autumn colors was still about a week or so away so only the slightest hints of their future glory shone in the afternoon sunlight. I marveled at height and breadth of the towering sentinels and wondered how many years it had taken for them to attain such heights. How many decades of drivers passed by or mourners wept in their shade?

The contrast for me was stark: here these stalwart organisms grew, towering up toward the sun outpacing their floral competition while beneath their boughs generations of humans lay buried beneath the good earth. It spoke to me of the transitory nature of man. Though long-lived for mammals, humans pale in comparison to other created things. Everything that encompasses this earthly life exists within the realm of our transitory nature. Our glories dissipate as we breathe our last (if not before) and the things we have accumulated pass into other hands, their meanings slowly lost over the years. We have little hope of any true, lasting impact even among those who we have loved. Eventually, monuments and memories fail and even the most world-shifting impacts become footnotes to history before they too are forgotten to the ages.

As morbid and futile as all this sounds, there is freedom in our transitory state too. All of the trials we struggle with are a breeze that blows but for a moment. All of the strife of this world will pass. The earth-shaking decisions and choices are mere bumps in the road of redemptive history. For those who trust in Christ, even the eventuality of the cessation of life is not final. For us, the comfort that comes in knowing the frailty and ephemerality of man outpaces the momentary troubles of the day, for we will rise.

As we in America struggle with the uncertainty and outright disgust of another presidential election, there remains a joy in knowing that these troubles, as mighty and desperate as they seem, will pass. History will continue. New crises will arise, new joys will be known. As we struggle with the pain and scars that are born from the innate sinfulness of man (there is no real denying that in our current age is there?) there comfort arises when we realize that no moment of time escapes the sight of God and that our history is bound to Christs’. One day, at the closing of our eyes or from the glimmer in the heavens, this age will pass away; our sorrows will be borne and we will experience the freedom and knowledge that comes in the presence of Christ. This, in no way, trivializes our time on this earth, in fact, it is the only way affecting change, calling out sin, or improving the human condition. Yet, it is not in our hands that history is laid.

Moses wrote of the temporal nature of man in Psalm 90:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night…

The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away…

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all of our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.

Our fleeting nature reminds us that the only change or victory comes from the hands of the Lord. My heart longs to pray with the patriarch as he cries out: “Return, O Lord!”, “Have pity on your servants!”, and “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.” This is the joy we can take from our frailty. This is the song we can sing knowing that our days are few. Help us to understand that we are dust and to dust shall return. While we tread the rocks and briars of this earth, satisfy us, and hear us as we rejoice in you; in that we shall forever be satisfied by you.

Ode to the Butterscotch Disc

There are many things which I am fully willing to admit that have been lost to our culture’s current obsession with technological progress. Reading, taking walks, honest to goodness conversations. All have suffered in our ever-pressing quest for the new, the better, and the best. Many things have been lost that should not have been lost; things forgotten that should be recalled. Yet at the same time, I am no luddite. Our technological advances have afforded us a multitude of comforts and luxuries. With all of our progress and ingenuity I am baffled at the continued existence of one particular product: the Butterscotch disc.

How is it that in 2016, with the array of absurd and wonderful confections we have access to, that some people are still consuming this hideous and outdated sugar sphere? Surely we have progressed enough that our taste buds demand more.

According to Wikipedia, the butterscotch disc was invented in the 1850’s. You know what else was invented in the 1850’s? The calliope. Also, the hand egg beater and the equatorial sextant. How many of those do we use on a every-day basis? Why then are we still consuming this faux toffee.

Now some of you might find this particular rabbit trail obscure. Perhaps you are correct. Perhaps there is still life in those humble amber discs. Perhaps. Or perhaps there is something more sinister lurking in the nether regions of that glass candy bowl sitting on the coffee table at your grandma’s house.

I may, however, be tainted in my distain for the “treat”. I still can recall the horrifying sensation that occurred when I was yet a child. As a youth I did not go to church regularly. Perhaps I attended on an Easter or a Christmas service, but the only time I found myself at church was with my grandmother who faithfully attended First Baptist Church of Ferndale. It was here that a shadow cast it’s pale gaze over my yet immature life. As I trailed along behind my grandmother on some errand or other, the pastor, a kindly man, offered me a piece of candy from the bowl sitting atop his desk. Innocent enough, huh? I did not steal the candy. I did not otherwise manipulate my way into this reward. It was simply offered, a gift as free as the gospel which would later change my heart. Yet this prize would not promise eternal life but, rather, something far darker.

I reached my tender hand into the bowl and, in the vague innocence of youth, fished out that most horrid of sweets wrapped in the sickly yellow plastic: the butterscotch disc. I don’t remember where I popped the candy into my mouth. It may have been the church or it may have been back at my grandparent’s house. Yet I remember in horrific detail the sensation as the hell-wrought confection lodged itself in my throat cutting off my supply of life-giving oxygen. In what seemed like hours I labored to free the disc which felt perpetually wedged in my esophagus while my grandmother rather calmly offered suggestions. Little did she know that I wrestled a struggle for my very life. Caught in the tendrils of the evil one I sputtered and gagged as the candy slowly dissolved, hoping beyond hope for relief from the pain. Only but for the grace of God did I escape to tell the tale. To this day the mere thought of such a disgusting sweet brings to mind the horrors that this fallen world is capable of. Perhaps, it was this connotation with my then-unregenerate life that led me to understand the connotation and implications of sin and death.

Heed my words friends. Do not be deceived into believing that nostalgia somehow tempers the intentions of this malevolent bonbon. In all our wisdom and progress we have yet to eradicate it from our penny candy jars. Halloween approaches. Spare those that you love the indignity and risk of consuming such a horror. I speak words of truth. Be warned, lest you too fall prey to its evil intent.

By the way, I’m not too keen on Butterscotch pudding either.