Last spring a man came to see me. It was the beginning of Lent, the original “40 Days of Purpose-Filled Repentance.”
“Pastor,” he said, “I want to confess my sins.” And in tears, he spoke honestly and openly about the sin in his life – nothing illegal, most known only to him, yet serious, and he was serious about turning away from it. We talked and prayed together, and he left.
Forty days later, he came back. “How are you doing?” I asked. “How is God at work in your life?”
He looked down. “I haven’t made much progress,” he admitted. “I still struggle with what we talked about before.”
As I watched a tear slowly trickle down the center of his cheek, I saw in his agony a question I’ve often asked: “Why does sin so stubbornly remain in our lives? He and I both want to change more than we have and more than we do. How come?”
I’ve heard many answers, ranging from “You just haven’t gotten serious enough about turning away from your sin,” (which doesn’t always seem the case) to “You need an experience of greater or entire sanctification,” to “You need an accountability partner,” to “You need to let go and let God.” All helpful, to a point, but they didn’t seem to pastorally fit this man hunched over in front of me.
As church leaders, we work with people feeling overcome by persistent sin – and we experience that in our own lives. What help or counsel should we give, starting with ourselves?
During the summer, I read several books, and unexpectedly, they spoke to this question. Their answer was not what I expected; in fact, it was the opposite of what I expected.
In the first book, Francois Fenelon, a Christian writer from the 1600s, wrote a letter to someone seeking his advice, and in it, he included a phrase that stopped me: “? sometimes [God] leaves people with certain unconquerable imperfections ?”
Really? God does this? What good end could God possibly have in mind for leaving unconquered areas in our lives?
Fenelon continued, “? in order to deprive them of all inward self-satisfaction. It would be far less trying to them to be corrected of certain involuntary failings than to feel conquered by their weaknesses. Everything in its own time. Self-reliance, even in the matter of curing one’s faults, fosters a hidden conceit.”
In other words, we are most concerned about our “certain unconquerable imperfections.” God is more concerned about our pride. And in order to stab our pride, he may leave those imperfections in our life, for a time; it’s designed to make us humble, to cause us to throw ourselves, in frustration with ourselves, upon God.
Fenelon is by no means soft on sin: “Let us watch, as in His sight, against the slightest faults, so as not to grieve the Holy Spirit, who is solicitous over our inner life.” But he knows that even faults that stubbornly remain can be used by God for our good: “Let us profit by the faults which we have committed, through the humble consciousness of our weakness, without discouragement or weariness.”
I swelled with hope. Could it be that our frustratingly persistent sins and flaws, which abound, lead us to a greater awareness of God’s grace, which so much more abounds?
I felt a little unsure, though: did anyone else think like this?
In the second book, Introduction to the Devout Life, a spiritual classic, I was stunned to see Francis de Sales write: “? for the furtherance of humility it is needful that we sometimes find ourselves worsted in this spiritual battle?”. Needful. Necessary for us. But, we don’t get discouraged by that fact, because “we shall never be conquered until we lose either life or courage. ? it is our privilege in this war that we are certain to vanquish so long as we are willing to fight.”
De Sales gives this example: “? if in anger or excitement I have been led to use unseemly words, offending God and my neighbor thereby, I will repent heartily, and be very grieved for the offense, which I must try to repair to the utmost; but meanwhile I will accept the abjection and disgrace which will ensue, and were it possible to separate the two things, I ought earnestly to reject the sin, while I retained the abjection readily.” Our failings, our persistent failings, bring us abjection (humility), and that’s spiritually beneficial. We should hold on to that benefit.
While striving for holiness, we must not underestimate the value of humility. As Peter of Damaskos wrote in the Philokalia: If “? you sin out of habit even when you do not want to, show humility like the Publican (Luke 18:13); this is enough to ensure your salvation.”
So are you struggling with persistent sin? Take heart. God is at work, and even your persistent falls may work to your good and his glory. Let yourself be humbled by your falls. Come as an imperfect, often-overcome sinner to the perfect, overcoming God who loves you. Fenelon gives what may be the best spiritual counsel on overcoming sin, outside of the Bible itself: “? bear with yourself in your involuntary frailties as God bears, wait patiently for His appointed time of complete deliverance, and meanwhile go on quietly and according to your strength in the path before you, without losing time in looking back; always ?reaching forth unto those things which are before,’ not dwelling unprofitably upon depressing falls and hindrances; sorrowing over them, indeed, with humility, but putting them aside to press onwards; not looking upon God as a spy watching to surprise you, or an enemy laying snares for you, but as a Father who loves, and would fain save you; full of trust in His goodness, continually invoking His mercy, and perfectly free from all vain dependence upon yourself or any other creature. Such you will find to be the path towards true liberty.”
