There is a gut-punch terror in looking into a fractured mirror and realizing that the man who blew your life to pieces is the man staring back at you.
I knew Jesus as a child and was baptized when I was about twelve. Somewhere along the way, I began ignoring Him. I wandered into a life that bore little resemblance to the faith I had known.
For decades, I lied, cheated, stole, conned, and manipulated. I betrayed people who trusted me, buried myself beneath criminal behavior, and blamed everyone but myself for the wreckage.
When the shame became too heavy to carry, I tried to drown it with drugs and alcohol. I wanted relief from the consequences without confronting the choices that caused them.
God did not abandon me there.
Across the years, He placed truths in my path that stayed with me even when I refused to act on them.
The first came through my uncle’s dog.
The dog crossed into a neighbor’s yard to relieve itself. My uncle joked that even his dog had enough sense not to make a mess in its own yard, where it would have to keep stepping in it.
I laughed, but the remark stayed with me.
I had spent years fouling my own life and then complaining about the smell. My choices left consequences for me—and for everyone close to me—to keep stepping through.
Even that dog understood something I refused to learn.
Years later, inside a drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation program, I got into a heated argument with another man over an orange.
An orange.
A counselor overheard us and told me to write down every grievance I had against the man. I gave him a thorough account of the other fellow’s attitude, disrespect, anger, and selfishness.
Then the counselor told me to replace the man’s name and pronouns with my own and read it again.
I saw the implication immediately.
It was those qualities in the man that I disliked. When I put my name above the list, I recognized the same qualities in myself. If I disliked them in him, I disliked them in me.
I did not like me.
That realization made me angry, but I had a defense ready. Recognizing my own faults did not make his attitude any better. He was still forcing that attitude on me. Why should my behavior let him off the hook?
It was a convenient place to stop thinking.
I could admit that the list described me and still keep pointing at him. I did not feel like working on myself.
I rationalized it and carried on.
The realization never quite left. It settled somewhere deep in my mind and nagged at me through the years.
Later, a friend asked, “Have you ever heard someone say, ‘I wish I could start all over again right now while knowing everything I know?’”
I answered, “Yes.”
He replied, “Jeff, that’s the great thing about life. You can start all over again right now, knowing everything you know, anytime you want to. Nobody can stop you except you.”
His words gave that old realization somewhere to go.
If I disliked being lied to, I could stop lying. If I respected honesty in another person, I could practice it myself. The same applied to cheating, stealing, conning, and manipulating.
I could stop doing the things I disliked in other people.
I could become someone I liked.
Those encounters were part of a larger awakening. Through years of regret, I could be surrounded by people and feel utterly alone. I knew whom I had hurt. I believed I had become worthless to God.
Then I found myself lying alone in a cold, dark cell.
There was no audience left to fool. I was exhausted from pretending and spiritually bankrupt.
In that darkness, the memories came together.
My uncle’s remark exposed the consequences I kept creating. The counselor’s exercise had shown me the qualities I disliked in myself. My friend had reminded me that recognizing them did not require me to keep living them.
I began to see God’s patient instruction through those encounters. He had confronted me with truths I could understand while leaving me responsible for my response.
Would I keep defending the man I had become, or return to the Lord I had been ignoring?
Jesus met me there.
I had known Him since childhood. I belonged to Him, but I had lost my way. Like a sheep that strayed, I needed the Good Shepherd to bring me back.
I could change my conduct, but no better behavior could erase my rebellion, undo the harm, or purchase forgiveness. My hope still rested upon what Jesus Christ had already done for me at the cross.
I stopped defending my wandering and surrendered to Him again.
Christ forgave me and changed the direction of my life.
I stopped lying, cheating, stealing, conning, and manipulating. As I stopped practicing the qualities I disliked in others, I became someone I liked.
That also gave me room for empathy.
I knew how easily a person could recognize another man’s faults while making excuses for his own. I could confront destructive behavior while remembering that the person carrying it could change. God had shown me mercy when I needed it myself.
The harm I caused remained real. Forgiveness did not make those events disappear or erase every earthly consequence, but Christ gave me a future that shame had told me was impossible.
By the hand of God, my past no longer owns me.
The man in the shattered glass remains part of my testimony. His failures belong to me. I leave him visible so that readers can understand the mercy God showed.
The Shepherd had brought His sheep home.
“He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.” —Psalm 40:2
—Jeff Wager
#WagerEssays #TheEssayDepot #WhatGodSays #Apologetics #Theology