Here I am. It’s a little after 7:30am, and this bald, 5 foot 5 inch, 266 pound man feels that, in many ways, I am wasting my life. I am currently reading John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life. I am familiar with the material. I ran across the sermon a couple of years ago, and no part of it does not make sense. Yet here I sit, wasting my life in so many ways.
I am addicted to food, have an on and off relationship with pornography, and I often times think that this is all there is to be had. My Christian life would probably best be described as bipolar. Things are not what they used to be, however. I was once a very angry person. I lashed out at those who were closest to me in an attempt to control my pathetic and crumbling world. I was addicted to pornography and didn’t have a second thought in my conscience toward my sin. It was seared. At all possible times, I went out of my way to indulge the flesh. And when things didn’t go the way I wanted them to, I lashed out. This led to my abuse, both emotionally and physically, of my family. By the age of 21, I was in jail, awaiting sentencing for a felony conviction stemming from my angry outbursts. The day I was convicted, I read Jeremiah 18: 1-6: The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: 2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. 4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand . . . The change was instant. I fell to my knees as the mar of sin penetrated my entire being and left a gaping hole in the center of my soul. I saw my wretchedness in the sight of God as my eyes were opened to his perspective. Yet at the same time, I saw Christ as the one who could remake me into someone who could bring him glory. The process of sanctification started.
God has changed many things in my life. The anger issue is almost completely gone. God restored my family, and the change in my reaction to situations is tremendous. I no longer want to control everything. Even when I think I have control, I don’t. God holds it all. When I do sin there is a difference. I had no second thoughts to my sin before I was converted. The only time sin bothered me is when I had to reap the terrible consequences of it. If there was no apparent consequences, I didn’t care. As long as I could get away with it, I was fine to continue in it. Not so anymore. Thus this blog. God is continuing to change me. Yet I feel that I am at a speed bump, and I haven’t given the car enough gas to get over it. I just rolled up to it, the front tires are gently putting pressure forward, but it is not enough to go up and over.
This past weekend, I was part of a conference that set forth the purpose of proclaiming the true gospel of Christ in the midst of the myriad of false doctrines and teachings in America. Month after month after month went into preparing this conference. Much publicity was done, long nights of labor were common, and much prayer was lifted to God. More people registered for the conference than the first one we had last year. But, much to my dismay, fewer people showed up. In a city where an 1800 seat performing arts venue is filled to capicity for a Christian singer, only 40 or so people show up for a conference proclaiming the gospel of Christ and outlining the problem of American, easy-believism. And out of the 40, some didn’t stay after the first session. I found myself in the shoes of Gideon: And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!” Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.” (Judges 6) I wondered where the power of the Lord was. Could he not even assemble people to hear the truth of the Gospel? Psalm 77:7-9 became my cry:
7 Will the Lord cast off forever?
And will He be favorable no more?
8 Has His mercy ceased forever?
Has His promise failed forevermore?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?
The situation only looked more bleak when I looked at my own life. 13 years since Christ converted me, yet so many times, I feel unconverted. The power of Christ seemed to not be on display at the conference . . . or at best it seemed weak. But I know that the power of Christ is not weak. At least I know that intellectually. And it only seems worse when I look at myself. I am not glorifying Christ. I clam up around non-Christians and blow every opportunity to glorify Him. I cannot seem to stop eating. A short, nearly 300 pound man does not show that Christ is his treasure. I would appear that food is. Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (I Cor. 10:31) Pornography still has a grip on me, albiet less often than in times past. I know much of the issue comes down to trust. Who do I trust, God or myself or something else? Once again, I believe it to be mostly intellectual.
But I have been thinking aobut men such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield and the glory of God they witnessed in their lifetimes. Why is there such an experience of God, and His power is displayed mightily in them when I see so little of God around me and in me? They are no better than I in the sight of God. Piper says in Don’t Waste Your Life That “God loves us by liberating us form the bondage of self so that we can enjoy knowing and admiring him forever.” p. 35. Love must “rescue us from our addiction to self and bring us, changed, into the presence of God.” p. 36.
So here I am, ready for my journey. I feel much like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress. In most ways, however, I make it through the Wicket Gate and past the Cross, but I must be wandering around somewhere around Vanity Fair. At any rate, it feels like a wilderness.
The purpose of this blog is to test the promises of God. In much the same way George Meuller kept a diary in order to show the glory of how God worked through faith, I pray this blog will be an unfolding testament to Him as I march toward and into the unwasted life. He is now on display, and if his word is true, I pray you and I both will see a story unfold here that cannot be explained by human means.
