“Too many times we are in the dark cave of shame, crowded out by the stalagmites formed from a thousand years of sin, and we’re holding the gospel up to every narrow beam of light.”- Jared C. Wilson
In Chapter 2 (“Good News for Losers”) of The Imperfect Disciple, Jared Wilson talks about the advantage of being at the bottom. Yes, the author acknowledges, at times it’s hard to read the pages of the gospel in our dark cave. We simply use it to wipe our brow or dry our tears.
On the other hand, Jared notes, we frustrate ourselves with the redundancy of our sins. As the author adds: “We like our ruts, and our ruts like us.”
In addition, it’s not just our sins that never seem to go away. That goes for our wounds also. However, Jared cautions us not to equate sins and wounds. He explains the results of this confusion:
“This needlessly frustrates people’s following of Jesus. We further traumatize victims when we tell them their wounds are sins, and we demotivate repenters when we tell them their sins are wounds.”
In other words, we need to sort out our responsibilities from our vulnerabilities. To vanquish our sin, we must expose it.
Next, Mr. Wilson takes a look at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Specifically, Jared focuses on the Beatitudes. He contends that many, many people – including lots of church people – think Jesus came to earth to loosen things up. Jared explains:
” . . . like everything was so boring and traditional and legalistic or whatever, and then God sent Jesus Christ to ‘Keep Jerusalem Weird’ or something, like he’s formed some hippie commune for people with ‘Coexist’ bumper stickers on their cars.”
Yet, it’s a mistake to assume that Jesus shook things up to disrupt other people. He came to disrupt you and me.
Today’s question: What Bible verses shed light into your dark cave of shame? Please share.
Coming Monday: the new Short Meditation, “Facing things out of my control”
Tomorrow’s blog: “Turning things upside down- or right side up?”
