Tear My Eyes Out

A funny thing happened on the way to bed this evening. My roommate came over and said he had some things to confess. What he had to confess isn't terribly important to this anecdote. Anyway, so after he told me what happened I was thinking, well, what can I do for my brother that's real and not just some pithy Christian platitude? I hate pithy Christian platitudes because they're meaningless to most people. I also hate bland sentimentality because it's unreal and ineffective. So after a moment I began to do something sorta unexpected.

I told him that as his brother in Christ, and one who also has the Holy Spirit, that in the name of Christ, he was forgiven for what he had confessed to me. It felt like picking up a great sword, too heavy for me. And I did stammer a little, but in the end the words came out. I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed for him. Then we spent the next two hours chatting about sin and how we constantly end up committing the same ones again and again; how humiliating those things are and that we KNOW better, yet keep doing it; how in our darkest temptations we can give in, knowing full well that God has presented a way out and that we're wholesale rejecting it to do what we want; how secretly proud we get and how utterly undeserving we are of Grace.

I marvel at how dim our spiritual senses are. Paul says "Now we see dimly, as in a mirror (not our modern 99.9% reflective mirrors, but a 1st century dull buffed bronze plate)," but I may as well be looking at the back of my hand most of the time. But even through that myopia I saw something incredible, and it nearly scared the shit outta me once I thought about it.

Every once in a while we're privileged to be what they call "used of God" for something. Tonight I was used of God to bring Christ's forgiveness to my roommate. But what a aweful thing it is for the Spirit to move in us! While I didn't think about it much at the time, toward the end of our conversation I considered it a little. This was a fairly small event--I didn't cast out a demon or anything. But I still felt I was much too small to do the job. I shudder to imagine what more explosive movement of God might be like. How infinitely small I am that He should ever stoop to do so! Even a drop of God's power could tear me apart!

Now I think I understand a little why every encounter with an angel in Scripture is met by terrified collapse to the ground. Anyone who thinks they could look the Creator in the eye, or even the least of his heavenly servants, is deceiving himself something awful. Your strength is no match. Snap to and recognize just how paltry you really are. There is no comparison.