Years ago, our accountability group had a guy that hadn’t quite made it to the “work-in-progress” level. He was wreck in progress! He’s on his third marriage, second bankruptcy and his first accountability partner. The thing about him was that he’s just out there. Having him in our group made me feel like Billy Graham for about three seconds.  Three seconds pass and then I remember that he’s got nothing on me when it comes to spiritual wreckage. Some messes are just out there for the world to see. Other messes, more insidious issues, hide underneath the surface of our glossy exterior. These hidden issues are especially dangerous because they can slide under the radar; things like greed, resentment, ungodly ambition, and other secret saboteurs of the soul. 

Psalm 130 underscores this ugly truth. We are all a wreck in a thousand different ways. We are wrecks, standing in the need of prayer, a day away from disaster. But the good news is found in the conjunctive sentence that follows: “But with You, there is forgiveness.” (Ps 130:4a) I’m so glad that this is the next line in the song. I’m relieved that it wasn’t something like: “With You I will hide in fear and hope that you don’t see me.” When we can’t stand in our own righteousness, which is basically all the time, we have a Father who invites us to run to him for mercy and forgiveness. That’s what is so powerful about confessing our struggles. All secrets lose their power in the light of their revealing. We are all on level ground in the presence of the Father. That’s why we say that the Jesus way is gospel—good news of GREAT joy. 

“to whom God would make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you the hope of glory!

Collossians 1:27

As I run to him I am running toward a hope that is far greater than the fanciful, temporal acclamations of this world’s squalor. When I approach Him I cross the line of divine foolishness. For indeed I am a fool for Him. I place my battered soul and broken crown, (everything that I have embraced for hope), I place it all at the feet of Christ

I am done with solutions
I am done with dispassionate living
I am done with self-sufficiency
I am done with filthy closets and shiny steeples
I am done with running through the muck of my human righteousness
The quicksand on the outskirts of Eden

I have a hope when all hope seems lost. I have freedom when I recognize the chains. When I reach the Potter’s house, glory spins and in the dizziness there is relief.

There is a quiet understanding, a stillness of the inner soul, finding its way into the the deep recesses of my heart.
Life as I know is dead to everything alive. Yes, Christ in me. The hope of Glory

He is fathering me
even in the days I cannot see
Through every trial I face.
He is there even in my disgrace.
Every lonely, broken place.
I am held together bone by bone
and I do not walk alone.
How my neediness has grown.
In my aging days I have come to see
how completely dependent I must be.