Help! How can I do good for others when I’m such a rotten person?

Help! How can I do good for others when I’m such a rotten person? January 12, 2017

It never worked. Ultimately, none escaped the “noonday demons” when the fullness of their darkness would be exposed yet once more.

Dear Thoughtful Pastor, Recently, I have encountered quite a few Christians who have told me that, after they were saved, living out their Christianity has been “easy.” “You just do the right thing,” they tell me.

Here’s the thing: I struggle to live out my faith. I find it hard to stay committed to studying scripture. I haven’t been to worship in a year. When I sit quietly to pray and contemplate, I feel so antsy I could scream. I constantly want everything to go my own way, and am not naturally inclined to put others’ needs ahead of my own. I find people so hard to like, much less love. And I find myself feeling unworthy of any love at all — from people or the Holy God.

But I want to know Christ. I swear I do!

Why is this so hard for me? Why is it so easy for others? What am I doing wrong?

I am too bad to do good: a typical Christian "demon"

Dear Thoughtful Pastor: Can God use us when we’re feeling bitter and angry and cold – the antithesis of who He calls us to be?
Both of these questions came in the last week, and they both seem to be addressing the same situation: the challenge of actually being a Christian.

I know there are some, like the ones the first writer alluded to, who find it easy to be a Christian. I honestly don’t see how.

For me, “doing the right thing” means a careful examination of my motives and my prejudices to sort out the “right thing” from the “thing that will ultimately benefit me.”

It seems to me that the central message of Jesus revolved around becoming perfected in love. His words as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew read, “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

This statement comes after he has told his followers to celebrate when experiencing persecution and live a kind of righteousness that exceeds even the most careful observers of the law. He insisted that his followers never use words to insult someone else, much less express anger at someone.

If we want to name ourselves as followers of Jesus, we will refuse to look at others as objects of lust. We will speak the truth so clearly that when we say “yes,” people will know it is a yes and when we say “no” people will know it is a no. No guessing necessary or fear that we say one thing but mean another.

Ultimately, Jesus commands us to love our enemies.

How are we doing so far?

The reality of Christian failure: face your demons

If you face failure, you may be doing something right.

Some early Christians sought to escape to the desert. There, living free from distraction, they could purify their souls.

It never worked. Ultimately, none escaped the “noonday demons” when the fullness of their darkness would be exposed yet once more.

Does it mean that we are useless human beings? That our anger and coldness and bitterness preclude us from ministering to others, from doing good to the world?

May it never be! No, no, no. Our self-awareness means that we learn the price of freely offered forgiveness and grace.

First, we forgive ourselves. That is the herculean task.

I spent years thinking it OK to extend the freedom of forgiveness to anyone but myself. It finally dawned on me that I was trying to give something away that I didn’t have: the experience of learning to live freely in the loving and tolerant waters of grace.

To experience that freedom, we first must acknowledge we need it. How? Practice confession, which essentially means “agree with.”

When we confess, when we agree with one another and with God about our human messes.

Remember, humans operate out of a stewpot of both graces AND griefs, goodness AND brokenness, purity AND contamination. All our motives and actions create a tangled knot of heavenly holiness and base sinfulness.

Confession must include self-examination

When we practice self-examination before confession, we acknowledge this stuff.

  • We do not shy away from calling bitterness what it is: a practice that poisons our souls.
  • We hold up our anger for observation.
  • We acknowledge that we are miserable failures at prayer.
  • We name selfishness for what it is and don’t try to whitewash it into something more acceptable.
  • We look at our coldness and see how it freezes everyone else out–and then how we turn to complaining about how unloved we feel.

We acknowledge these things before ourselves and before God. THEN, the crucial step: we receive forgiveness without guilt or a lingering sense of unworthiness.

Sure, we’re going to mess up again. Jesus told his disciples that they have to forgive their friends up to seventy times seven. The giving and receiving of forgiveness is a never-ending task.

Slowly the knots untie. Because we are human, new tangles will form. But the more we practice grace, the more we find freedom to do what is right and good.ask-the-thoughtful-pastor


[Note: a version of this column is scheduled to run in the January 13, 2017, edition of the Denton Record-Chronicle. The Thoughtful Pastor, AKA Christy Thomas, welcomes all questions for the column. Although the questioner will not be identified, I do need a name and verifiable contact information in case the newspaper editor has need of it. You may use this link to email questions.]


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