Lies I Used to Believe: Part 4

The Fall

When I began work on my college degree, I was 19-years-old, starry-eyed, and idealistic to the core. I felt that life was easy to understand, and that the people who claimed life was complicated were just not thinking things through clearly. I was convinced that I knew everything I needed in order to live the perfect Christian life.

My habits were all neatly arranged to promote the optimum Christian life: early rising, extended periods of Bible-reading and prayer, no secular entertainment, sober-mindedness (read, guilt for humor), and frowning at “worldliness.”

The Christian speakers I was routinely exposed to reinforced many of these ideas. Further, the Christian atmosphere of my tiny Christian school was that of introspection and self-examination at all times.

Essentially I was coached in making sure everything was perfect in my life. Always. And for a period of time I was happy with my ability to live “in a manor pleasing to the Lord.”

Then, on February 12, 2005, my car caught on fire and burnt up. Like, literally burnt up. The only things left were metal parts. What was worse was that three friends and I were INSIDE the car when it ignited. We jumped out and had no permanent injuries… but I was dumbfounded that God would take my car after I had lived so perfectly before Him.

This event destroyed my sense of security at my perfect life. I knew God was punishing me for not being good enough, so I redoubled my efforts to be the best Christian possible. Over the next year I fought to live the holy existence in every way.

But it seemed that no matter what I did, bad things continued to happen to me. Failed tests, ruined friendships, disappointment…

I wasn’t able to keep up with my academics and my spiritual disciplines, either. I tried hard, really I did, but I was becoming more and more frustrated by my inability to get everything right.

Furthermore I was still very involved with a Christian organization that taught me that I had to do a number of things “just right” in order for God to bless me.

One day a respected teacher stood up and told us that there was a biblical command for all Christians to make vows to God. These vows were commitments to do or not do certain things. The more vows you made, the more God would use you. (I’m not making this up.)

But on top of my guilt for not being good enough for God, I was also listening to the ideas that God wanted MORE works from me in order for me to be worth something to Him.

This “favor with God” was based solely on externals. The examples of people who “made vows and succeeded” always ended happily.

My life was anything but happy and I took this as proof I was doing something wrong.

I tried publically confessing sins; I tried cutting off contact with every aspect of the “world outside;” I tried people-pleasing; I tried everything I could think of to get it right. Yet nothing seemed to work. I was incapable of living righteously enough to be acceptable in God’s eyes.

There isn’t an immediate conclusion to the problem here. I spent years struggling with these doubts and issues.

However, because I was also striving to be a people-pleaser in every way, I couldn’t let anyone know my struggles or doubts. Only a couple friends knew I was hurting and depressed… and they were fighting through the same issues because they lived in the same atmosphere I did.

By the time I was done with school, I was barely trying to “do good.” I had fallen from my tightrope of rules and standards and was hurting.

I graduated from the school in 2006 but stayed back for a depressing year to work on staff.  In 2007 I moved back home to Kansas—more confused than ever. I toyed with the idea of walking away from my faith altogether. I thought about it a lot.

The lie I had sunk to was that God’s perfection demanded my perfection—and that until I was perfect, I was never going to be good enough to be used by God.

The truth is that every human is incapable of perfection, and that God does not expect or require perfection from us. He’s offered us a free gift of Salvation through the only perfection possible: Jesus Christ.

Oddly, I understood this truth applied to NON-Christians. It’s what we Born-Agains refer to as part of the “Plan of Salvation.” But for some reason I thought that perfection through Jesus only got you saved… I thought God required ME to be responsible for my perfection afterwards…

Next: Finally Free