My Confession

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For the last seven years, in addition to the interruptions to the “Everyday Grace” devotional and my blog at PHG, the IRS has accused Lifetime Ministries of failing to file our annual tax report, Form 990.

In their typical manner, a letter arrives from the IRS. They make their accusation, levy a penalty with accruing interest, and tell us what to do to resolve their claim. In our case, all that’s necessary to prove that we filed Form 990 is to scan a copy of page one and send it to the IRS.

And thus begins the circus. “We received your reply but there was no attachment.” “We received your letter of protest, but there was no copy of page one included.” “We received page one of your Form 990, but no letter.” “Your penalty will continue to increase and accrue daily interest.” Ninety or a hundred-and-twenty days pass in between each exchange, which takes months and hours of time.

After many months, a letter arrives. “You owe $0.”

A few weeks pass. A new letter arrives stating that we have failed to file Form 990 for a different year. The process starts all over again.

Have we filed Form 990 each year since our formation in 1975? Yes. Can we prove this? Yes. But if the Feds come after you, you lose.

I’ve not said much about this, but as I said, this has been occurring simultaneously with the interruptions to Anabel’s devotional and my blog at PHG. Seven years. Countless hours. A fair bit of worry. Lots of loss. Many thousands of dollars in threatened penalties. More thousands spent on remedies. A profession gone, a reputation blacklisted.

This harassment and censorship are a strange tale, especially in America. In fact, if I put this saga in my next novel, the editor would strike it as too phenomenal to believe. But as Twain said, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”

Scripture is clear that hardship will come our way and it provides a lot of commentary about suffering for the cause of Christ. All through its pages, the Bible offers reassurance and hope to those undergoing trials, especially trials associated with advancing the Gospel.

For the last seven years, I’ve not questioned what the Bible says about suffering for the cause of Christ. But I have stubbed my toe associating my struggles with those endured by our forebearers in the faith.

Granted, pain is relative and comparison is pointless. However, I’m pretty certain Stephen’s stoning hurt worse than no longer being able to sell books. Being crucified upside down is likely more debilitating than a broken website.

Consequently, I have lived in denial for the better part of the last seven years, not denial that I had unexplainable impediments to my ministry endeavors, but denial that my struggles qualified as spiritual suffering. The fallout from my denial is that Scripture’s comfort and guidance for those undergoing spiritual hardship has not been relevant to me.

It wouldn’t be accurate to assert that I’ve spent the last seven years walking after the flesh. Rather, that I have endured a great hardship (for me) without the direct biblical counsel available to me. While suffering specifically, I’ve only had general biblical perspective. As a rule of thumb, until a problem is identified and named, it can’t be specifically treated.

When I consider Paul’s inventory of sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11:23-33, I grow pale. What must this man’s body have looked like in the shower? For sure, mine doesn’t look good either, but for a different reason.

As I considered this passage one morning, I stopped on verse 28: “Apart from such external [suffering], there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches.”  

Oh, I thought. Mental and emotional duress on behalf of the Kingdom counts as suffering. Elsewhere, Paul states that he despaired of life, that he was depressed, and demoralized. Me too! I thought.

I haven’t been flogged or spent a night clinging to flotsam in the sea, but I readily identify with all the ‘d’ words Paul confessed. I didn’t get in trouble with those more powerful than me for writing unkind things about their mothers. I got in trouble for inserting Jesus into society’s narrative.

My confession is not that I haven’t told you of my labors with the ‘d’ words, but that until about six months ago, I have failed to consider my trials with a joyful attitude.

I’ve complained. I’ve wrestled with God. I’ve labored, and struggled, and cursed, and drank on the patio … but until recently, and not until I properly identified my trial, have I considered the labors of the last seven years with joy.

One morning, my Scripture reading took me to James 1:2: “Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials” (1:2).

I remember that morning clearly. I put my coffee down and removed my reading glasses. I stared out my window and felt my soul fill with conviction. Seven years to see this verse. Why so long? Why so slow on the uptake? The sensation was of drowning, my soul going beneath the waves as the tumult consumed me.

I drove to the river and a less frequented trail. I walked. I reflected. I tried to make sense of seven years lived elsewhere than in the countinghouse of joy. I sat down on one of the benches beside the river.

There was no suitable spin to redirect my story, no polish to put a shine on the last seven years. I felt convicted, embarrassed. Twenty-five hundred days spent somewhere other than joy.

Penance has no place in Christianity. Some would say there is no place for guilt, shame, or confession.

But there is incentive to work out our salvation. Yes, there is the completeness scripture uses when speaking of salvation in the past tense. But in these paragraphs, I’m exploring the present tense, the grind, the daily experience of life with Christ. The past has been made perfect. The present is a knife fight in the alley behind the bar. The future tense of salvation is the hope I cling to that in God’s time, He will make all things right.

I stood up and turned toward my truck. With soft steps, as if walking on holy ground, I confessed my soul’s ‘d’ words to Father. Not that He needed me to tell Him of their existence. I needed to properly categorize them and access His provision of scriptural salve to the lash’s whelps raised on the skin of my soul.

I considered James’ guidance. Part of me, the rational aspect of me, thought him delusional. Another part of me, the raw and inspired place, longed for the cutting edge of faith, the tip of the spear where God hones, slices and dices, excises the flesh, and does His finest work.

I nodded—and made a decision. “Father, thank you for the privilege of suffering simply because I belong to you. I give you my losses, and in exchange, I ask that you show me your way, please. I need to know about joy.”

This story transpired about six months ago, maybe nine. One doesn’t get over seven years quickly, but after these weeks, I have regained my footing. The ‘d’ words still plague me and the loss of my reputation remains an embarrassing malady, but more often than not, my spiritual equilibrium has returned and stabilized such that I can find words to offer you in those places that cause you pain and pause.

Regaining my bearings is both simple and profound. The process is as straightforward as practicing my spiritual disciplines, those baseline fundamentals that form and ground me. But for all their simplicity, the fundamentals are profound—profoundly challenging, profoundly healing, and profoundly challenging to execute.

And for good reason.

A grounded faith is a resilient faith. An ungrounded faith is subject to the waves that James writes about. The work of Epstein, et al, tells us that resilient faith is only gained through frequent failure.

As folks who are secure in Christ, we are free from the dread of failure, free from the sense that our place with Father is dependent upon performance. In the dark places, God calls our name and holds our hand. He may be quiet, but He is not absent.

In the dark, midst the ‘d’ words, we are free to work out our salvation. In between the Bible’s past tense perspective of salvation and its future tense of salvation, a resilient faith is forged in real time.

As I reflect on the past seven years, I’m reminded that it took Job thirty-seven chapters to sort through his deliberations with God. Job could not have written his story in ten chapters. For Job to tell his story, and for God to tell His, forty-one chapters of unfiltered poetry were necessary before the prose of Chapter 42 and the story’s resolution.

We quote Joseph’s statement to his brothers, “I am in God’s place. You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:19-20). This is solid theology, but Joseph’s story begins when he is seventeen years old. When he makes his oft-quoted declaration, Joseph is an old man. Preface his proclamation with the thirteen chapters covering his life and his declaration about God is stunning.

Stanford says, “When God wishes to make a tomato vine, He takes three months. When He desires to make an oak, He takes a hundred years.”

“Consider it all joy” is not a new verse and choosing joy isn’t a novelty. A decade ago, I could have written an exegesis of James 1:2. My work would have been exemplary and the spiritual insights accurate.

But a decade ago, I would not have had the last seven years to forge my understanding of what joy costs and what it accrues.