“I can say that I never knew what joy was like until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus.” –Malcolm Muggeridge
I have been reading a fascinating book by John Owen called “Overcoming Sin and Temptation”. The great irony to me in reading this book is that reading it when I needed to know the information the most was when I was least interested in the content. My pursuit of happiness and fulfillment led me over many a rocky and purposeless road whereupon I cut my tender feet; even as I knew God’s grace would cover the wounds. But grace did not deliver me from my thoughts, and I was consumed with the pain and regret from
each fall so that I wandered aimlessly, much like the Israelites of old, and never arrived at my destination. Unaided as I was by other Christians, who sought only to tell me what I was doing wrong, now I have but one wish; that they would have taken the time to compassionately understand who I was and why I did the things I did. The gentle touch of love would have been so much more effective than the verbal lashings of those who purported to be friends. And maybe, just maybe, they could have carefully guided me away from some of the cliffs I so willingly jumped off.
In my youth I was very proud of my ability to lie well. Not only would I tell a lie to cover my theft of food from the kitchen cookie jar, but I would concoct a pliable story surrounding that lie. I always thought my mother believed my eloquent stories, but now as I look into the faces of my own little liars(my children) I know exactly how she felt; exasperated.
Lately I have been troubled by a lie I told in my youth. It was a simple lie–not one of those
‘have-to-remember-all-the-details-so-you-can-cover-your-tracks-later’ kind of stories. As I consider the lie and the context, I’ve had to come to terms with who I was then and who I am now. I also have come to terms with hypocrisy(as it relates to me) and what it means to truly follow Jesus.
I ran into Nancy Bowen at Wal-Mart in Ferguson, Missouri when I was 19 years old. She was my former Sunday school teacher. She asked me a simple question, one of those flippant questions church people ask when they haven’t seen each other in a few years, “So where do you go to church these days?”
So I lied. Because I didn’t want to tell her I’d given up on church and church people. I didn’t want to tell her I still believed in God but I’d lost all faith in him because of how people treated me in His name. It was easier to say the name of a building I’d seen on the side of the road than open the wounded cavern of my heart to someone who might actually help me. We said some other casual catch up things and then she left. I went back to work. Except the conversation never left me. And it has stayed with me all these years until a few days ago when I decided it was finally time to deal with it.
Nancy Bowen was truly the perfect Sunday school teacher. She was kind, gentle and funny. She was also very no-nonsense about a great many things in life. She was a hero to me in that way caring adults are to small children who feel insecure and alone in life. So of course, I loved her.
I remember well the felt boards in Sunday school where Mrs. Bowen, would illustrate the great stories of the Bible. People like Joseph (with his multi-colored coat), and Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus clung to the board mid action while Mrs. Bowen read the stories behind them. I remember the coffee on her breath and the perfect bob of her dark amber-colored hair. And I seem to recall the baby Jesus, who wouldn’t stick to the board very well because his cutout was small, and so he was always falling onto the floor until finally Mrs. Bowen would set him to the side in defeat. I remember when she gave us seeds and we watched them grow into polka dot plants. I have a great fondness for green and pink spotted plants to this day because of her. So when I think about the last interactions I had with her, my heart hurts.
I lied to her.
I read a book some years back called, “Where the Heart Is” by Billie Letts. It’s a pretty good story about a 7-months-pregnant girl, Novalee, who is abandoned at Wal-Mart by her boyfriend, Wily Jack. Because she has no other resources, she lives in the Wal-Mart until she gives birth. At the end of the story, Novalee finds Wily Jack in a hospital where it is apparent fortune has not been so kind to him. At the beginning of the story, when they are driving in his car, she asked him to feel her belly–to feel the heartbeat of their baby. When she asked him if he heard it he said, “No.” But at the end of the story he confesses to her that he had lied. When she asks him why, he said this:
“Why does anyone lie? Cuz we’re scared? Or crazy? Or just mean?… There’s a million reasons why a person lies… But sometimes, you tell a lie so big… that it changes your whole life… Lie’s so big… it makes you think…”
His words convince Novalee to confront her own heart and a big lie she told to someone she loved. That’s how I feel about my lie to Nancy Bowen. If only I had confronted the big lie in my heart when I was 19, I would have saved myself years of heartache, trouble and grief.
I have to learn everything the hard way. I’m not really sure when I came to the conclusion that I knew what was better for me than God did. Maybe I was born with that assumption. Maybe it germinated in the fantasy novels I read as a child and then grew limbs in the romance movies I absorbed as a teenager. Regardless of when it began to grow, somewhere along the way I came to believe that God was not enough for me. I mean, I believed in Him. I knew He was real. I knew all the stories. But I honestly thought my way was better. And not because of some great revelation. It’s because when I wanted something, I always found some way to justify having it, even if the Bible said it was wrong. I couldn’t draw a parallel with my will and God’s will. I always thought that he should give me what I wanted, and when he didn’t, he was wrong. So when I suffered the consequences of behavior I knew to be aberrant from Jesus’s teachings, I figured that’s what grace(and forgiveness) was for. This belief, however, proved very problematic when my weight ballooned to 310 pounds because I could not deny myself the sweets I relied on to help me cope with life.
We like to tell the story of the boy who cried wolf in my house to illustrate why lies hurt people. 
Shoot, they can even get you killed(as the boy who cried wolf discovered). And the truth is, my lies not only hurt the people I told them to, but they hurt me as well. That is because the lies I told myself covered the truth so effectively that I couldn’t face my real problems. Truth, as I have lately discovered, is a sparkling jewel that can take some digging to discover. But once you find it, you never want to let it go.
John Owen is teaching me how to mortify sin. My main focus in reading the book, “Overcoming Sin and Temptation”, has always been to discover the root of how to defeat my addiction to food. The addiction is mental and physiological, but I am learning it is also primarily an issue of the heart. This week I had a real breakthrough when, in chapter 11, I came to these words, “If ever you will mortify your corruptions, you must tie up your conscience to the law.” Now I’m not a puritan. And you certainly won’t find me with a reed–whipping myself, but when John Owen directs the reader to read the law(the ten commandments), I stopped and did so. You can find them in Exodus 20. And I don’t remember the last time I read them. But the first one says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” And that is when I realized the root of the big lie for me. In my youth, I was my own god. Mr. Owen pierced my heart with the following words.
“What have I done? What love, what mercy, what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on! Is this the return I make to the Father for his love, to the Son for his blood, to the Holy Ghost for his grace? Do I thus repay the Lord? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, that the blessed Spirit has chosen to dwell in? And can I keep myself out of the dust? What can I say to the dear Lord Jesus? How shall I hold up my head with any boldness before him? Do I account communion with him of so little value, that for this vile lust’s sake I have scarce left him any room in my heart? How shall I escape if I neglect so great salvation? In the meantime, what shall I say to the Lord? Love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation–I have despised them all, and esteemed them as a thing of naught, that I might harbor a lust in my heart. Have I obtained a view of God’s fatherly countenance, that I might behold his face and provoke him to his face? Was my soul washed, that room might be made for new defilements? Shall I endeavor to disappoint the end of the death of Christ? Shall I daily grieve that Spirit whereby I am sealed to the day of redemption?”
When I was young, I always did what I wanted to do, and by doing so, I forsook the very first commandment. Jesus said it very succinctly in the gospel of Matthew(22:37-38), “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
And the lie I believed is finally distilled down to its essence. And I am so glad because I can finally break the power of it. Because the truth is this; I no longer love myself more than I love Jesus.
How many years did I waste? How many hearts did I break? Seeking only myself and the lusts of my heart?
It’s a really painful thing to consider, especially since there is nothing I can do to make it right. I look at my life–at all the wicked things I have thought and done… Gluttony is self-gratification(loving myself more than Jesus). Pre-marital sex is self-gratification(loving myself more than Jesus). Drunkenness–stealing–lying–hate… To my shame, they all exemplify a life lived only for myself, and not for the suffering King who bore the weight of them on the cross to ensure my salvation.
I had to live in and love the world for a long time before I discovered the true sweetness of Jesus. I had to learn the hard way how eating with abandon, lying to my friends, watching porn, taking drugs, and dealing with unplanned pregnancy hurt me. Because that’s what lies do; they destroy.
So why does this matter today? Because today is Good Friday. Today I think about God who became flesh to bear the weight of my sin on Calvary. He took every lie, every thought, every action, and crucified it so I could have a relationship with him. Because he loves me. He even took the lie I told Nancy Bowen when we were standing in the toy aisle in Wal-Mart 22 years ago. And that is the most freeing, most comforting, most wonderful truth. A truth that won’t be described in words on a blog, though I have certainly done my best to try.
I continue down the rocky path on my journey to learn discipline, but I have certainly enjoyed drinking from the cool brook that refreshed me this week. I never imagined it would look like reading the law. And for that I am glad. Because if today is any indication, God is not done with me yet. I have many more brooks to visit, more steep hills to climb, and probably a few valleys-of-the-shadow to stumble through. But the truth that has taken hold of my heart today, is that I am never alone on this journey. Jesus is with me. And honestly, that’s all that really matters.
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