The Good Hurt

When your individual calling and job is to look for needs and deficits in the Body so you can teach and train to them for the good of the Kingdom, it’s easy to get distracted by what others do. It’s also easy to become complacent in your own pursuit of holiness, judgmental in your view of others, and accepting of your own sin, particularly if it doesn’t seem as off to you as someone else’s.

I’d love nothing more than to delete that last phrase because I know it reveals the recent condition of my heart, the trap that I fall into most often, my own pet sin. But God has been gracious to me lately, not in giving me the kinds of things I tend to pray for, but in correction, conviction, and the revelation of His absolute, unedited truth. In His kindness, God has been showing me sin in my own life, dusty shelves and dirty corners that I’ve neglected until they’ve become nests for what I consider to be more dangerous pests like pride, arrogance, idolatry, and hatred.

It hasn’t been a pleasant process, but I’m thankful for it. The initial shock is the worst part, I think, realizing that you are capable of doing the kinds of things that cause others to stumble and get in the way of their coming to faith or living in it. Then comes confession, the moment when you own your own rebellion and tell God the truth of it. It hurts. It’s humbling. It’s a little too real, but it’s also good.

When we stop justifying our rebellion and own the ugliness of our own hearts, when agree with God that we are guilty in the way He says we are in His Word by His Spirit, He lifts the burden. Completely. I don’t know how to explain the feeling really. A fever break, maybe? That’s probably the best way I know how to describe the rushing, shaky, cool relief that comes with letting God take away everything that was making you sick.

Even so, that doesn't quite capture it. Water after intense thirst? Calm after a storm? I don't know.

What I do know is that I’ve come to crave it. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of trying to be good, failing, and making excuses for it. I need the God Who saved me to carry me, too. I need His arms around me, His power inside me, His joy before me. Thankfully, it’s mine the second I let go of me and grab hold of Him. Repentance isn’t something to be resisted. It’s a gift.