If there’s one frustration I have about my spiritual life, it would be that I am not as righteous as I would like to be. I doubt that surprises anyone who is truly committed to Christ and wants to glorify Him with his or her life. Part of growing as a Christian is recognizing where we are typical to fall short. Charles Spurgeon once said, “The more holy a man becomes, the more conscious he is of unholiness.” I can attest to this. Not that I claim to be holy. Quite the opposite really. I feel more unholy than I feel holy. If this is the mark of Christ working in me, then I suppose I should feel joy. However, this isn’t my strong suit.
I default at regarding myself as holey. I am full of holes. I am incomplete, broken and tattered. I have many faults and blemishes. My holes are everywhere. They affect all aspects of my life: emotionally, sexually, psychologically, and socially. I would like to include spiritually among this list, but I think it is worth saying that because of my spiritual holes, the development of the holes in the other aspects of my life has occurred.
Dealing with Holey-ness
I have mentioned in my blog before that I call myself a broken saint. Broken down grammatically, this means that a saint (noun) is who I am and broken (adjective) is my condition. I am a saint not by my own doing or choosing. I am only a saint because of God’s chosen work of salvation through Christ’s death on Calvary’s cross. I remain broken because this chosen work is continual within in me.
The truth of this self identification, though biblical, is more of a reminder to me than anything else. The fact is, I too often focus more on the “broken” than the “saint.” So, I think more of myself as holey instead of holy. This has often led me to remain in my sins. I mean, if I am broken anyway then how could living outside that fact make any difference? How could my seeking righteousness amount to anything if I am unable to escape my unrighteousness?
The words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:18-24 ring very true for me:
And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? (New Living Translation)
My own brokenness remains as a stumbling block for me. I can’t seem to do right for very long. No matter how much I desire to serve God by relinquishing the things that separate me from Him (a.k.a. sin), I am regularly drawn back to those things, consciously or unconsciously. Consciously, when I am tempted to rebel against God’s word (be it through lust, anger, selfishness, etc.) and then do. Unconsciously, when my inclinations (i.e. inner prejudices, self-interests, sensibilities) implicitly influence my attitudes and beliefs about myself or others and my actions that follow.
Turning from Holey-ness, to Holiness
I know that I am not alone in this struggle, and it is a purpose of this blog for me to share this with others. It is my hope that I can in some way minister to someone in this way because I believe that we are all broken. It’s just some are saints and others aren’t.
Second Corinthians 3:18 says, ” So [All Christians]…can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.” And 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (New Living Translation).
I am God’s child, created by Him because He planned to love me and have fellowship with me. God is holy. That is, God is righteous (the essence of what is good), pure (without contaminant or malfeasance) and He is set apart (that is He is unlike anything that humanity can construct for themselves as objects to worship). God is also simplistic. That is He is wholly unified within Himself. He is without parts and so cannot be broken up or dismantled. God is whole. He is not susceptible or vulnerable to anything that opposes His nature.
As a new creation, God’s holiness is present in my life and changes me to become more like Him in my nature. So, God’s righteous character is imputed to me so that I begin to think, feel and act the way God has created me to think, feel and act. That said, I also begin to reject the things that God rejects, namely sin. God’s holiness also purifies me. So long as I am in God’s presence, His holiness removes unholiness in my life. What was once a vulnerability becomes a strength, slowly becoming impervious to opposing forces like temptation. In His holiness, God sets me apart in how He changes my character, but also in order to do His good works.
What would it look like if I viewed myself as a new creation? Instead of regarding myself as “full of holes,” what if I viewed myself as God’s child created by Him, redeemed by Him because He loves me and planned to have fellowship with me? What would that spiritual perspective do to how I operate emotionally, sexually, psychologically, and socially. Could I see myself being changed from being holey to being whole in these areas of my life?
Holy God, Wholly Human
Nicholas Thomas Wright wrote, “You are called to be truly human, but it is nothing short of the life of God within you that enables you to be so, to be remade in God’s image.” Clive Staples Lewis agreed when he wrote, “To be a complete man [or woman] means to have the passions obedient to the will and the will offered to God.”
Secularism would have us believe that to be human is merely a complex bunch of biological matter and systems on one side, and to have the capacity to will, find purpose and nurture on the other. But, from a Christian perspective, to be human is to be like we were intended to be in the Garden of Eden: to be the image of God, imitations of Him.
The fact that no person on the face of the earth can truthfully admit they have their life altogether, that each one of us defaults as lacking perfection, tells me that not one of us is a whole person. Each of us lacks something of the character of God. We aren’t wholly human. That is, not until God’s holy presence in our lives starts remaking us into His image at our conversion. God declares His disciples as Holy, setting us apart for His saving work as He continues in our sanctification (the act of becoming holy or godly).
Being enveloped into the presence of the Holy God, means that my holes are being filled. This means that I, His holy saint look more and more unholey, as God reforms me into His whole image. Then I would become more whole emotionally: my neuroticism would decrease and I would become more secure, more stable. Then I would become more whole psychologically: experience less stress, less internal conflict. Then I would become more whole sexually: I wouldn’t lust for any other person other than my wife, neither would I have impure or immoral views of my wife. Then I would become more whole socially: I would be more compassionate, more forgiving, more willing to see others’ points of view. I would become more like the character of God and seek His glory and His will above all else.
My default is resetting. I started off as holey, broken and full of empty spaces, but the Holy God has called me holy too and thus is filling my empty spaces and making me more like Him. Thanks to God, I am becoming wholly the way I was intended to be. I am becoming wholly me!
Chronicles of a Broken Saint 