BEN : I too spent time as a cadet . . .

I too spent time as a cadet in God’s Army, as one might say.

I remember one particular event where we strategically captured one intersection in suburban Houston. We were armed with cold Coca-Colas and tracts on a brutally hot afternoon. The pitch was this: “Coke says that they are the real thing, but I want you to know that Jesus is the real thing.” We were so proud that we had distributed hundreds of ice-cold beverages to unsuspecting people who were in need of the Gospel. Mission accomplished.

Perhaps there were one or two people who peeled off and then read the tract that was pasted to the side of the can by way of the intense condensation. My guess is that most used it like a napkin to keep their hands dry while they consumed a cold beverage in the heat of a Houston summer.

Looking back, I was that obnoxious evangelical who always wanted to lock horns in a verbal debate and prove someone else wrong. The goal was to get the other person to see the flaw in their logic, give up, concede, and then admit that I was right. The sad reality is that there is probably some person I went to middle or high school with that will forever hold me as a reason why they do not want to be called a Christian.

So much has changed in my life that I’m not sure I even recognize the guy I was back then. And more and more, I feel less inclined to tell others that I am a Christian for fear that they might think of me as the obnoxious guy I once was.

The practice of my teenage years left me quick to speak but empty inside. So much so that when the structure of the weekly “sales” meetings ended after I left for college, I felt let down and lost. It was not be until I sat in silence and saw the light in the flicker of a candle lit by one of the holiest men I know did I realize that the path to God is one that should begin and end with silence, for the “real thing” often reveals that which should never be spoken of or written.

My greatest failure was this: the practice of my faith centered around the flaws of others rather than myself. The story of the woman brought before Jesus after having been caught in the act of adultery resulted in the condemnation of the elders who set her up, not the naked woman standing before him. Is there a more compelling reason to believe in the promise of the Gospel?

I am a Christian not because I was able to find proof that I was better than someone else but because God saw me naked and yet did not condemn me either.

Salvation comes not in the saying of magical Sinner’s Prayer but in the seeing of ourselves naked and realizing we no longer feel condemnation.