The speed of grace
Christianity links sin and death. For example, in his letter to the church in Rome, the apostle Paul writes: “For the wages of sin is death” (Ro6.23).
The classic Christian equation is that we human beings sin. A lot. From birth.
All sins are crimes against God. God is just. God is perfect. Therefore humanity owes God an impossible debt. To put the scales of justice back in balance and to restore the perfection of all things, God should damn us all to hell or at least execute us.
Because of his great love, however, God solves humanity’s problem. He pays the debt and rights the wrongs of humanity by taking all the death and punishment we are due. He does this in the form of his son, Jesus Christ, put to death on a cross.
This is the classic Christian equation as I understand it.
But I notice something else going on with sin. Something less of an equation or legal abstraction. Something more personal. Something that has taken the last 40 years for me to see and could change everything about my life for the next 40 years, God willing.
It’s this: Sin is inertia. Sin is stuck. Sin is the sails hanging in the doldrums.
I think everyone has a “big sin”–something they compulsively and habitually do that they wish they could stop doing.
Since puberty, mine has been pornography.
Some people have tried to tell me this is no big deal. That pornography is not a sin. It is for me. For one, it gets its power over me from a deep sense of inadequacy and shame and weakness that I’ve felt since I was very young. I go to porn because I don’t believe I’m good enough to deserve love and sex from a beautiful woman. Or a more accurate way to put it: No beautiful, intelligent, strong woman would ever love me unless I was more than I am. And I’m not. So pornography is the closest I’ll ever come to knowing what it feels like.
Pornography starts with shame and compounds it. Once I give in to the temptation to waste three hours sneaking around looking at porn, I don’t feel better. I feel worse. About everything. Especially me. The voice in my head whispers: “See. Look at yourself. Sitting here in the dark all alone looking at porn. Who could ever love you? What would all the beautiful, intelligent, strong women in the world think of you? You’re disgusting. You’re not a man. You’re a pig. You deserve this. To be alone.”
Now at this moment, I have a choice: Wallow in self-pity and shame. Or get moving.
For most of my life I chose to wallow. To stay stuck. I could glance at porn for five minutes at 9 a.m. and because I felt so bad about it, I would end up spending the entire morning looking at porn, then binge eat all afternoon. Why? Because: Why bother? I’m ruined so why not ruin the whole day? I’m bad, so what bother trying to be good?
I gave up. I stayed stuck.
That’s the power of your sin–whatever your sin might be: Shame and self-pity that keeps you stuck in an emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual grave. The closest I’ve ever come to being in a crypt was being alone with my porn because I didn’t think there was anything else for me. I bet you’ve felt that way, too, about something.
Sin is death, not because of some great cosmic scales of justice, but because it has so much power to make us give up, to shut down, to stop trying. Sin is death because when we sin we are too ashamed to try life instead.
But if sin is “stop,” then grace is “go.”
Grace is moving and it’s moving fast.
I don’t know how this came about, but sometime in the last few months I began using this little phrase every time I slip up at anything: “Get moving. Let’s go.”
And I know this little phrase is from the loving heart of God because it’s the opposite of what sin has taught me to do over 20 years.
Sin says: “Stay here. Look at yourself. Wallow. There’s no escape.”
Grace says: “Go. Get moving. You’re free. You’re alive. You sinned? Yeah. OK. Who doesn’t? You’re sorry. That’s enough. Let’s go. You’ve got a life to live and a lot of love to give. So let’s get living and loving. NOW.”
At first, I almost heard myself audibly say: “Yes, but shouldn’t I sit here awhile and suffer for what I did?”
Grace: “Why? Do you think sitting around feeling ashamed is going to make it better? No. I (God) didn’t make you and redeem so you can sit around feeling ashamed all the time. You feel bad about what you did? OK. Good. Now, let’s get on with resurrection and get back to life. You’re never going to outgrow these sins by sniffing their fumes all day.”
We’re all sinners and each of us has a choice: The stasis of sin (which feels like death because it is) or the speed of grace (which feels like life because it is). For the first time in my life, I’m learning to move at the speed of grace.
May you also come to believe in the love of God and may you choose to move at the speed of his grace.