For when I am weak, then I am strong

Lent: a time to delicately rub one’s face in the mud and acknowledge the fact that sin has overwhelmed one, and one needs a savior.

“One”: namely, me. Who am I to write a Lenten meditation? was my first thought, upon Sherri’s invitation to post to this blog. For I am not the picture of any kind of self-denial but of the opposite. I could recently be seen reading about the hyper-ascetical Desert Fathers with one hand while holding my 6th (but who’s counting?) slice of pizza in the other. I have obviously not been developing as a church resource on the topic—a Christian spirituality mainstay—of self-denial, and in fact I now weigh more than several Pacific island nations (and my food expenditures probably vies with their GDPs).

I knew that to write my first Lenten meditation would mean choosing one of two paths. One would be the temptation to write about some great spiritual ascetical things I have read about in books. The other would be to actually meditate. The latter led to being honest and personal, which may in itself seem self-indulgent to readers, and would in any case be humbling. But I don’t really think I have a choice.

Now, being overweight is not a sin, but I think gluttony is. Any disobedience to God’s will is sin. And in this arena, I found myself doing what I knew was sin, over and over. And along with it, like a swarm of demons, came the accompanying sins of dishonesty, dissipation, and misusing God’s money. And I postponed day to day—year to year—the implementation of the heavy artillery that would be needed to actually bring it all to an end.

When prayer, principles, promises, and plans weren’t enough I finally reached out to a community of like-minded sinners. (Actually, I think if had prayed more, I would just have gotten to the community sooner.) Dr. Jeffrey Satinover once pointed out how the 12 Steps of AA express basic evangelical Christian theology, if in Step 1 you substitute the word “sin” for “alcohol:”

1. We admitted that we were powerless over sin—that our lives had become unmanageable.

And etc. This I did. Now I write down what I plan to eat each day, ahead of time. But that is not enough. No: I share with a community. I make a phone call at least once a day to another sinner—I mean, over-eater—and share what I wrote down, and what happened the day before. I share reality.

This method can work for arresting not only alcoholism or gluttony but for any type of sinful behavior—anger, greed, pride, lust, and the other two Deadly Sins too. It works because it is God doing the work. For God, the New Testament makes abundantly clear, usually insists on working through other people.

But I don't think the vast majority of Christians, including me, could ever bring ourselves to practice it—until our backs are against the wall (or have “hit bottom”) and we have no other options. It is too humbling. Actually, humiliating feels more accurate, just as humiliating as sharing this with you now.

But it could be worse, I remind myself. Without His grace and a lived repentance, I could instead be judged and punished for all the time and money I have wasted and my many other sins, which is what I deserve.

Also, I remind myself, it works. Or rather, He works.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” —2 Corinthians 12:9–10