Dr. Amie sat, waiting patiently. I was mid-story, pausing to get my thoughts and emotions under control. Recently diagnosed as being moderately depressed, I was in her office for counseling. My mind had gotten so twisted that I was actually my own worst enemy. My conscience, my inner voice, was so ugly, convicting and damning, it was as if nothing I did was good enough.
"Enough." That is a very powerful word and, depending on it's context, it can either good or bad, it can help or destroy. For me, it was a self-imposed branding of a scarlet letter of F for failure upon my chest. My inner voice said I wasn't a good enough pastor, a loving enough husband, a patient enough father, a handsome enough man. Enough, enough, enough! In every vocation I tried to fulfill, my conscience condemned me as a failure, and it did so in the ugliest and most brutal language you can imagine.
Dr. Amie interrupted my silence with two simple, direct questions: "What is this dumbassery?" I snorted at her creative use of such professional, diagnostic, and therapeutic terminology. She added, "Why are you doing this to yourself?"
The answer to that question was as much theological as medical. The medical diagnosis was depression. The theological diagnosis was that the devil was in the dumbassery going on in my head.
A Christian conscience is supposed to be like an umpire, telling you when actions are right and wrong. My conscience was telling me that I was bad, aweful and not very nice...and, as the great philosopher Dr. Seuss once penned, I felt "those were my good points, to be quite precise!"
Dr. Amie was helpful in getting to the root of the problem, and she offered very good counsel on dealing with and fighting against these kind of thoughts. In particular, she helped me separate behavior (making a good or bad choice) from my identity (I am good or bad because of this choice.). But, it was my pastors who helped to apply the cure for my "enoughness." Instead of letting me fester in my self-loading, they pointed me to Jesus.
Where my voice said I wasn't good enough, they reminded me that Christ was perfectly good enough in my place. Where I felt I was a failure, they showed me where Christ succeeded in conquering sin, death and the grave for me. Where my voice declared me "Unworthy!" like a masculine Hester Prinn, they reminded me of the baptismal promise showered on me as an infant and repeated every Sunday in the words of absolution: all of my sins were washed away in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
In those conversations, I learned the power of Romans 8:1 - "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." And, with my conscience absolved and restored, my inner voice was calmed and soothed.
The devil's dumbassery is the greatest and most dangerous dumbassery of all: that we doubt that we are forgiven for Christ’s sake.
Enough with enough! Deny the dumbassery and instead cling to Christ. Baptized into Jesus, His perfection is yours. Join me in reveling in that blessed comfort, for there is no condemnation for those who are in Him.
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