The Case for Grace: A Journalist Explores the Evidence of Transformed Lives (Case for ... Series) by Lee Strobel

Author:Lee Strobel
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2015-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

The Pastor

Can We Forgive the Most Personal of Wounds — And Ourselves?

To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.

Brennan Manning1

He was a seminary graduate, the former leader of a prayer ministry, a popular speaker, the husband of his childhood sweetheart, a father of three, the senior pastor of a thriving church — and my friend. Now there he was, standing alone on the stage, looking out at faces shrouded in darkness and announcing his resignation from the church he loved so much.

“I have broken the covenant of my marriage through adultery,” he told the stunned congregation. “I have sinned against God, my family, and you. I have repented of my sin and seek your forgiveness. Jesus hasn’t failed you, but I have.”

Brad Mitchell walked off the stage, out the back door, and drove home to his wife, Heidi. Together, they cried until it was time to repeat his confession at the next service. By far, it was the lowest point of their lives.

Unfortunately, infidelity has become commonplace. In 41 percent of marriages, one or both spouses admit to physical or emotional cheating.2 Newspaper headlines over the years have documented — with distressing regularity — the accounts of religious leaders whose marital betrayals have cost them their pulpits. Few of these stories, though, describe the pain, the struggle, the loss, and the humiliation that these preachers and their spouses invariably go through.

Grace? These pastors have spoken on the topic countless times. They’ve taught the story of the Prodigal Son, preached on the theology of the cross, described the Christian necessity of offering grace to each other, and served the bread and the wine that represent the price Jesus paid to open heaven’s floodgates of forgiveness. But suddenly, mired in their own sin and shame, grace can seem so much more elusive to them.

Can a wife offer grace to a husband who has trashed their wedding vows and dishonored her in such a public way? And can the pastor, exposed as a hypocrite, finally come to the place of forgiving himself — perhaps the most difficult expression of grace there is?

Before we feel smug, this is more than a spectator sport for the rest of us. After all, don’t each of us struggle with the same issues to some degree — forgiving those closest to us who have broken our hearts in one way or the other (in my case, my father), and finding ways to ease our own guilt when we have transgressed a moral boundary that we swore we would never breach? We want to throw stones at the Christian leaders who have let us down — but who among us can hurl the first rock?

Those thoughts coursed through my mind as I sat in the family room of my house with Brad and Heidi, who were next to each other on the couch. I have known Brad for more than twenty years.

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