On Christian Conviction
Those who live in darkness need God's light. Who but us will carry the lantern?
Brent wore black.
Black jeans and always a black T-shirt. Shirts with skulls, dragons, and demonic symbols. Not proper dress for a company such as ours.
Brent wore a frown.
Not a scowl of anger or irritation, but a downward face of despair. A face disgusted with another meaningless day.
Brent’s manner was unfriendly.
But quiet. He never raised his voice, but his terseness put people off.
People did not like being around Brent.
Brent appeared unprofessional. Brent seemed unsocial.
Brent’s office was down the hall and around the corner from mine. It was down the hall from us all.
All of us, that is, in our little prayer group.
Our group was diverse: protestants, Catholics, a Latter Day Saint, an Eastern Orthodox, even an agnostic. All of us men.
We prayed and talked about scripture. We held up one another in Christ’s love. We discussed the sermons of the previous sabbath. We attended to ourselves.
We attended to the business of our own salvation.
We did not attend to Brent.
Brent killed himself. Gruesomely.
But poor Brent, who had but 25 years in this world, was our business.
Whose business was it to notice his frown but us? Who but us, in that block long, multi-stored building filled with smart and affluent people would attend to his darkness? Who but us could stop by and invite him to lunch or coffee or say in encouraging word?
Who but us?
The next prayer meeting we wept, quietly but openly, in shame.
We could not look one another in the eyes. We resolved that we had failed as Christians and that we were convicted, in the Christian sense: our prayer group, strong in faith, was blind to a nearby darkness. A fellowship unto ourselves, we offered no solace or hope to introverts, the sad, the quietly ill, loud-mouths, jerks, vain snobs and every other annoying, irritating and demanding condition that is the human race.
What especially stung us were the vacant comments of our colleagues:
“no one saw it coming…” “If only we had known his pain…”
Those comments stung because we did know Brent was in, or from, a dark place. Middle-aged men we that we were, we were callous to youth in general, knowing they are cocky little shits, arrogant and dismissive of “wise men.” Well, the young ARE that way and they have always been that way. What we forgot about ourselves is that wise men are wise because they are humble, and hypothetical insouciance from anyone, much less a kid, will not shake them. Graying hair is our license to dispense wisdom and love to whoever needs it, regardless.
I am not so conceited as to think we could have saved Brent (that was in God’s hands), but we could have approached him. We could have invited him to join us. Brent might have reacted with hatred, rage, and cursed us with demonic passion and STILL, God would demand we forbear the abuse and deliver His Good News.
Being convicted to a Christian is not the same as common guilt. Pangs of guilt are not convicting, they are emotions often unsolvable, more akin to regret. Conviction is a much worse feeling. Conviction has some hang time, brother; it keeps on giving.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. -Romans 1:18
Through our inaction, we had suppressed His truth. A Christian has a duty to obey God and Christ commanded us to love our neighbors as He loves us. He did not mean that we only love those we get along with or those who can deliver favor. Conviction is a call to action, redemption and a step closer to Christ.
Of course, Brent was not any of these dark things. Not really. But that is all that we saw. We did not know the Brent of a few years earlier. We did not know he was once a joyous extrovert, a fine student and a hard worker.
We also did not know that Brent was a reader of Arthur Schopenhauer and other atheistic depressives. We should have taken our seat at that table of despair as agents of the Redeemer.
From Acts 16, when Paul and Silas were imprisoned in Philippi:
When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and twas about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
So leave your jail cells this week and find someone who could use a kind word or even just a smile. If they don’t reciprocate, suck it up, Christian, your salary has already been paid on the Cross.
Vale
Artwork is all from Wikimedia Commons