Merciful Exposure
The Fuller years were demanding and fruitful. We pushed ourselves hard. Departing from ‘student housing’ in Pasadena, Annette and I ventured throughout the Los Angeles area with shovels in hand, digging ditches. We trusted God to fill them with mercy, His streams of healing for a dry and weary land.
On top of our ditch-digging we were on the pastoral team of the Vineyard Westside, and leaders in Exodus International. I was also developing the Living Waters program, and what became my first book, ‘Pursuing Sexual Wholeness.’
Then came the children. Over the course of our time at Fuller, Annette and I had Gregory and Nick, and became pregnant with Katie. I really don’t know how we did it.
A driven man? An amazing wife? A complete lack of judgment? The grace of God? All of the above. Lord, have mercy.
He did, but our action-packed decade was not without negative consequences. Annette and I faced some heavy pressures on our marriage, and I found myself returning to pornography as a way of escaping the pressure. (It was of the mild, non-virtual variety but porn nevertheless.)
Having been clean for years, I was alarmed by the power of its draw. I would cruise the streets for newsstands and liquor stores, any place with magazines. It was shameful and compulsive. Pursuing sexual idols competed with ‘Pursuing Sexual Wholeness…’
Gratefully, Annette and I were part of a ‘covenant group’ with about 8 others, including our pastor, to whom we would pour out our hearts weekly. That was the group instrumental to healing Annette’s abuse. Now I needed healing, but I knew it could only come through being absolutely honest about my bad behavior.
That was humbling. To confess sin once, OK. But over and over? Yet each time I did, I received mercy. And the truthful insight of people who were holy, who had been around the block, and who knew how to wait and listen to what God was saying—wow, I received mercy and it set me free.
God’s mercy set me free through His body. I learned yet again that connecting with God, friends and spouse is vastly superior to relying upon graven images.
The group actually exposed two other important needs. Like any good small group, it had the wisdom to know it could not meet those needs.
The first involved my personal need for in-depth counseling. The weight of my calling, bouts of intense sexual temptation, and unfinished business with my father, necessitated my reliance upon a good Christian therapist.
At first I worked hard to avoid the searchlight of the therapist’s expertise. I finally relented (it’s expensive!), and accepted some core areas of pain, need, and wounding. To this day, I surrender these areas to God and others; I have learned to receive and extend mercy there.
Finally, our small group encouraged Annette and I to get marital therapy. Our lives together were weighty, and we needed to learn how to connect as a couple in light of our ever-changing family. That was good and hard—hard, because I had to face the way I would dodge the truth of Annette’s real need for me, and the way she would allow me to do that!
More exposure, more mercy–more of God’s grace released upon our lives together. He provided for us. What we learned in that season we still practice.
God exposes us to give us mercy. He prefers to give mercy to us in our weakness. Yet we must do our part and offer our weaknesses to Him through His church. When we don’t, we risk the judgment of being exposed in the public square, mercilessly.
‘Confess your sins and faults, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.’ (James 5:16)
‘As You have shown us mercy, O God, in the desert places of our lives, would You show mercy to the beleaguered state of marriage in the USA? As the Perry vs. Schw. case wends its way to the National Supreme Court, prepare for Yourself a victory. We shall render to Caesar what is Caesar’s but we shall prayerfully fight for what is Yours, O God. Prepare the hearts of each justice, especially Justice Anthony Kennedy, to uphold marriage according to Your merciful design. Remember mercy, O God.’
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