Lynea's Story

I met Jesus as a child. My parents both had a relationship with Jesus and knew him as their Savior. They wanted the same for me. I asked Jesus to save me from my sins when I was just 3 years old. Growing up, I played the responsible, parent-pleasing daughter at home and was rarely guilty of offense. I was sure God was quite pleased with my compliance to his Fatherly guidance as well. It took a long time to realize that this type of relationship with God was based on my own self-dependent religiosity, which Jesus harshly condemned in the “do-gooders” of his time. Jesus came to offer me his goodness and his perfection based on his standards, but I couldn’t see how much I needed it. Nearly 20 years later, while engaged to be married and fulfilling my dream of living in Africa, I came to need it when my own goodness failed me in three major ways:
First, I was horrified to feel a growing sense of spiritual and national superiority. Africa had so many problems. I was surrounded by daily poverty and suffering which I attributed to corruption, dependency on foreign aid, and what I perceived as a general lack of resourcefulness and ingenuity. In my heart grew judgementalism, distrust, and defensiveness toward my fellow students, professors, and friends. I was ashamed of these feelings and afraid that someone would see through my kind, giving exterior to the darkness of my heart. Much of the time I just wanted to go home; run away from the problems and from my pride.
The second major surprise was just how controlled by vanity I was. I gained nearly 20 pounds while there, and it was really bothering me. I had tried bulimic behaviors a few times while I was at college in the States. Now I tried it again, binging and fasting. In my spirit I was very uncomfortable with it, but I ignored my guilty conscience and kept on. I nearly ruined the relationship with my fiancee over it as he began to discover how self-centered and fake I was. He should have just dumped me; vanity was getting in the way of our love for each other, for the people around me, and God.
The third failing was sexual immorality with my fiancee. Our engaged life was tainted with regret as we struggled to stay pure before marriage. I had lived my life on the belief that God’s ways were best – that obedience was not a burden but rather a benefit of being his dearly loved child. But seriously! . . .obedience in terms of sexual purity seemed a terrible burden in times of passion and romance! We ended up not only failed God’s standards, but our own expectations as well. And no matter how guilty and determined we felt to stop, we were powerless to change our future actions, let alone erase our past actions!

Now I understand that you who are reading this may believe my guilt over these things was misplaced or unjustified. Fine. But I believe that there comes a point in every life when you simply know that what you did was not good enough. You have failed; you messed up. That was me. It was a gross and inescapable reality – I had done the wrong thing. I was wrong. I could have dismissed my guilt by saying, “nobody’s perfect” or “everyone makes mistakes” or “I have a right to do what feels good to me.” Yet I realized an imperfection was in me and it bothered me deep down. I wanted it erased and gone. I was desperate to be clean and free from accusation.
That’s when my childhood friendship with Jesus became not just a fairytale fantasy but a bloody-real deal. Jesus was the only one who could offer me what I desperately wanted. Because of his perfect life and his sacrificial death, I could really actually be clean and free from accusation. I understood why he died. He took that guilt, shame, and failure away from me. He stood before the perfect God with my imperfection all over him. My guilt is on him . . . and his goodness is on me!

“The Ten Commandments were given so that all could see the extent of their failure to obey God's laws. But the more we see our sinfulness, the more we see God's abounding grace forgiving us. Before, sin ruled over all men and brought them to death, but now God's kindness rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 5:20-21)