Dust As I Am

“For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.”

-Psalms 103:14

If a man falls into sexual sin he can repent and move on. If he falls into despair, he may never get up. So despair scares me in ways sexual sins don’t.

That doesn’t negate the seriousness of porn use, adultery, perversions or other moral failures, since the misuse of the body is described in scripture as something especially damaging. (I Corinthians 6:18) And, lest we forget, both the first martyrdom in the New Testament (John the Baptist’s beheading described in Mark 6) and the first case of church discipline (I Corinthians 5) were both prompted by sexual sins.

Still, I find it harder to scoop a Christian guy out of despair than to call him to repentance. Somehow it seems easier, at least for the men I’ve worked with over the years, to believe the scriptures condemning their sins than the verses annulling their condemnation. Knowing what you’ve done is wrong doesn’t take a boatload of faith, after all. But clinging to your security in Christ after you’ve deliberately ignored Him to pleasure yourself calls for turbo-faith, the mountain moving kind Luther prescribed when he said to ask forgiveness just as boldly as you’ve sinned. And that’s where this business of staying pure gets very dicey indeed.

Dicey because there really is a place for grieving our wrong, and I question the spiritual health of anyone taking a cavalier attitude towards confession and repentance. But the line between godly mourning and ungodly condemnation, though fine, is also definite and needs to be recognized. I know, having been there and done that. I nearly drowned in condemnation when my own sin was made clear to me, and though I’ll go to the graveyard or the rapture hugely grateful to have had it exposed, good night, I don’t remember any other time in my life I’ve been in such despair. We pay an awfully high price for stepping outside truth, a tsunami of personal grief being just a part of the bill.

But I also never really knew God’s gentleness ‘till I turned on myself in wrath. Then, at my lowest point, I felt that inexplicable touch He gives; that against-all-logic soothing Peter must have felt when Christ restored Him, or the prodigal must have experienced seeing an offended father running to greet him. Those are the horrible and beautiful times, horrible because they’re brought on by our stupidity; beautiful because they leave us so helplessly trembling before a judge who’d rather be a Dad, embracing us when a swift kick would make more sense. Immeasurably strong bonds are made when that happens, and when we dare to believe the good news still applies. That’s when the One who refused to condemn a guilty woman tells us, as He did her, “Neither do I condemn you”, making a mark on our souls that perhaps couldn’t be made any other way.

So He remembers our frame, not our sin. He more than anyone understands temptation’s power, having been tempted in way’s we’ll never have to face. And while He’ll never accept our excuses for sin, He’ll welcome our tears over it then demand, as needed, our confidence in His love. To every woman or man weighted down with despair over their failings, He would, perhaps quite sternly, offer a reminder:

“What I suffered so you’d never be condemned isn’t to be taken lightly. Refusing my grace is no different than despising it and negating my gift is akin to refusing it.”

So may the sins we’re striving to overcome and renounce never become verdicts we allow to define then discourage us. And when the accuser calls us to throw in the towel, may we switch the dial from his worthless station and crank up the golden oldies that remind us we serve a risen savior who paid it all on the old rugged cross. Mercy there was great and grace was free, morning by morning new mercies we see, and our song shall ever be, ‘How Wonderful, How Marvelous!’