P.O. Box 53055    
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RAGGED REPENTANCE

Have you ever accepted the services of someone, even though you knew in your heart that they were a stinker? Or maybe you’ve had someone say “sorry” to you, while deep down you had an idea they were still pretty much bad all the way through and that their repentance was politically motivated.

In Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s recent bestseller, Living History, she makes some frank confessions about a certain political operative named Dick Morris.

“Bill and I considered Morris a creative pollster and a brilliant strategist,” she writes, “but he came with serious baggage.”

First of all, Morris was willing to give advice – for a fee, of course – to anyone. Even – perish the thought – Republicans. In another tell-all book, George Stephanopoulos writes that Morris’ “stated professional goal was to ‘help the Republicans govern successfully and become a majority party.’” In fact, he had run campaigns for such arch-conservative politicians as Trent Lott and Jesse Helms. Plus, “he had the people skills of a porcupine,” Mrs. Clinton adds. Clear back in 1978, when her husband was a young governor in Arkansas, the Clintons used Morris, and they won the statehouse. Two years later, since the whole Little Rock team couldn’t stand him, they DIDN’T use him . . . and they lost. After that, they held their noses and used him every time. In the White House, they would quietly call him, sometimes using what they called a “back channel” so the Oval Office staff wouldn’t know. Just before the ‘96 election, where the brash consultant was caught in a New York City hotel room with a tell-all prostitute, the President was forced to make a public break with Morris, but then still kept up the surreptitious phone calls from a White House linen closet. Tragically, Morris was one who advised the beleaguered President, when the Lewinsky scandal broke, that the public wouldn’t stand for it, and Clinton made the fateful decision to try to lie his way right to the end zone.

Well, that’s enough for sure, and the point is this: we often take our friends along with us, as they so often say, “warts and all.” Either because we love them in spite of ourselves, or because their poll numbers outweigh their public sins.

Well, what’s often bad news for us in our earthly relation-ships turns out to be good news as we realize that our heavenly Father takes us into HIS house despite our obvious fallings and failings and hype and hypocrisy. Even when we say we’re sorry, even when we come to Him on our knees in repentance, He knows it’s half-hearted, that we’ll let Him down again. And yet the Word of God is filled with so many pictures of this patient Friend who isn’t just our Redeemer, but our perpetual Redeemer.

We’re just getting into the Judges chapter 6 story of Gideon, the soon-to-be leader of Israel’s forces. But early on in the tale, as we’ve already studied, God’s children are yet again falling into dereliction. They worship the Baal gods with such relentless rebellion that God permits the yearly invasion of the Midianites. Seven years in a row, we read, the nomadic adventurers from outside the nation’s boundaries just march in and take the crops, plunder the goods, scorch the earth. And Israel, in despair, does what? Well, they cry to the Lord, as always. Even in their sins, with the Baal idols and the so-called “Asherah poles” and pagan fertility shrines still jutting up into the skies, these rebels look up into those same skies and go: “Help!”

And God does! He knows their apologies are brought on by their own hurt; He knows how shallow their loyalty is. And yet He does the two things heaven always is good for: a prophetic word of admonition and encouragement, and then a plan of redemption. He sends Israel an unnamed prophet, who does outline why they’ve had to go to bed without supper the past seven years. But God also begins to outline the first details of the Gideon guerrilla band.

In the Bible commentary put together for students in my Adventist faith community, we find a note of cheer right at this juncture. Here it is:

“Although they had grievously neglected God,” the scholars write, “and refused to call upon Him until driven to do so by extremity, God still heard their cries. This shows how ready God is to forgive and how inclined He is to hear prayer. Such mercy on God’s part should be a great encouragement for sinners to repent and turn to Him.”

Isn’t that good news? Listen, have you ever prayed a prayer and then felt the blushing sting, the backlash of hypocrisy, right while you were praying? Your words rang so insincere because you’ve done this thing before and are undoubtedly going to do it again. And God knows it! You know that He knows it! So how can you pray? But friend, the Lord is aware of our pattern of repeat violations. He knows that our hearts are tugged toward two kingdoms at the same time. He knows that our love for Him is stained by our history of failure, that we can never say “I’m sorry” and mean it as much as we should.

In Philip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, he gently reminds us that Jesus, the Son of God, is equally generous toward us.

“In one of His last acts before death,” he observes, “Jesus forgave a thief dangling on a cross, knowing full well the thief had converted out of plain fear.”

Have you ever thought about that? We humans generally sniff at “deathbed confessions,” or “foxhole converts.” If a person is going to live for God, why do they wait until the last 10 minutes to say so? Talk about “catching the last trolley out”! And here is a thief who is gasping for breath, whose mental processes and spiritual sensibilities are pretty much shot to pieces up there on a cross, where the horrors of slow asphyxiation make any words he can gasp out suspect and “not admissible” anyway. And yet Jesus treats his confession with the most generous respect; He honors and accepts it at face value.

We’ve used it before, but at the very tail end of the wrenching spiritual film, Shadowlands, a little boy has just lost his mom to cancer. Now all Douglas Gresham has left is a stepdad, an aging writer and professor who happens to be named C. S. Lewis. And there’s the famous scene up in the attic, next to the closet of coats that might have led to the mystical world of Narnia. But now there’s nothing but heartbreak. And in his grief, the kid asks: “Jack, do you believe in heaven?” After a moment of hesitation, he whispers: “Yes.” And Douglas shakes his head, angry and confused and mad and in full-blown despair. “I don’t believe in heaven,” he manages at last. And, fiction or whatever, I think C. S. Lewis gives heaven’s answer at that moment. “That’s okay,” he gently replies. Because there are times when weak human beings who are children of dust cannot see their way clear through to the pearly gates. And our tender Jesus knows that heaven is real and that He want us there even in the dark and tear-stained times when we’re not sure. There’s a wonderful, parallel story found in Mark 9, where a desperate dad brings his demon-possessed boy to Jesus. The disciples have already failed to drive out the enemy spirit, because their faith is so weak. And Jesus says to this guy:

“Everything is possible for him who believes.”

And this fragile man gives the perfect answer. He knows his own faith is kind of lousy too. He realizes that if this miracle depends on how hard he can swing the faith hammer, the kind at the carnival where the little metal gizmo shoots up and hits the bell at the top of the pole, well, he’s not going to make it. So he cries out to Jesus:

“Jesus, I DO believe; help me overcome my UNbelief!” “Help me with my doubts!” is the Message paraphrase.

But friend, let’s not lose this concept. Fragile and coming to Jesus is better than fragile and staying away. Having doubts at the foot of the cross is better than having doubts on the other side of the freeway, still embracing our sins and telling God He’ll have to wait for our vote. Our forgiving God had the phone lines open and, indeed, here in Judges chapter six, He was waiting by the phone for the entire seven years of Midianite Madness. He loved Israel the whole time. But the hurting and the pillaging didn’t stop until Israel finally awoke from its stupor and began to stumble back to its roots with Jehovah, ruler of heaven and earth.

If there’s pain happening to you right now, the kind of self-inflicted sorrow that comes when we hang onto sin, God cares about that. And He may be allowing or even sending that pain in order to bring you back to Him. So if we plead: “God, make it stop hurting!” the best way to open the door for God to answer that prayer is to do exactly that: come back to Him.

If your repentance is imperfect, so what? All repentings are. Ironically, this same C. S. Lewis once wrote a chapter entitled “The Perfect Penitent,” and admits that only Jesus could repent “perfectly” – and He doesn’t need to. Thankfully, He accepts our half-a-loaf, our muddled motives, our baby steps – and makes up for it all with His own Calvary account.