When I was about 10 years old, something strange began happening inside my heart. I became convicted about every little thing I had done, was doing, or had ever thought about doing. This began a series of confessions to my mother that was anything but normal, especially for a young child who had not yet done anything too terribly wrong (at least according the world’s standards). Looking back on those emotions, the pain I felt inside, and the disappointment I held toward myself each time, I now believe that those convictions weren’t convictions at all. What I felt was condemnation.
Let me explain the difference: Conviction looks toward the future with hope for a positive change; while condemnation looks hopelessly at the past with regret, disappointment, and sometimes even self-hatred.
Conviction is from The Lord and condemnation is from hell.
Confession can be so freeing, but only when it is put into the right hands. I ran to my mom for forgiveness and always came up lacking. My mom did her best to forgive me, comfort me, and reassure me that it was okay to make mistakes. But, if I had truly found the forgiveness I was seeking, the cycle wouldn’t have continued like it did.
As I grew up, I started believing that because I was doing certain things and abstaining from other things, I was a “good christian.” Not that I had ever made a conscious decision to be a Christian, but growing up in the Bible Belt of Cullman, Alabama, everyone was a “Christian.” In high school I made nearly all A’s, was the DD at parties, and held on to my virginity as tightly as I could. I found much pleasure in my own self-discipline and control. I was essentially my own God, measuring myself according to the standards I set; praising myself when those standards were met and hating myself when they weren’t.
When I reached college I became jealous of the freedoms that my peers were able to enjoy without conviction. Little by little, I started fighting my own convictions and hushing that voice inside of me that was telling me I was made for more. I began to develop an unhealthy view of grace and a false confidence in my Christianity. My view of God was all forgiveness and no wrath; all mercy and no justice. He was a powerless, “feel-good” God who accepted people right where they were and then left them there.
From self-righteous to overly grace-dependent, my understanding of God always had more to do with me and less to do with Him. My god was tiny and my problems were big, and that’s what happens when you are the center of your own story. It wasn’t until I began to understand the weight of His glory more clearly that my focus began to shift off of me and onto Him.
The more I understood of who He was, the more astonishing it became that He could love me as intensely as He did. The more I understood of His holiness, the more imperative it became that He not allow me to sit in my mess. The more I understood of Christ’s Kingship, the more scandalous it became that He washed my feet, carried my sin, and paid for my life on the cross.
The truth of who God is beckons a reckless abandonment of the things of this world. As Paul says in Philippians 3:8: “ Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him.” As my heart was awakened to these truths about God, my life was changed. If you’ve yet to be radically transformed by the scandalous love of a Holy God, I want to promise you that there is more. There is so much more.
Pray for God to reveal His greatness to you, to stir up in you a desire to truly know Him, to create in you a hunger for His truth. And He, being fully confident in who He is and what He deserves, will do this because He is jealous for you.
