I had received a friend request on Facebook from someone from my distant past. Seeing this person reminded me of someone else from the fourth grade—a girl named Monica. In my little fourth grade world, Monica was the reason I went to school.
We even exchanged notes that said “I like you.”
Halfway through the school year, however, Monica announced that her family was moving away. There was a goodbye party for her at a local skating rink on her last Saturday in town. Everyone came except for Monica. We couldn’t reach her, as we didn’t have iphones or social media back then—we didn’t even have the internet—and, as far as I knew, she didn’t leave her new address or phone number with anyone…
I never saw her again. This was one of the greatest mysteries of my childhood.
When I thought about her two weeks before a talk I was preparing on “The Surrendered Moment,” I wondered if she was out there on Facebook now, so that I could find out whatever happened to her that year? I typed in her name, and within a page or two of the results, I think I actually found her…
I then did something that was very uncharacteristic for me… I composed a message to the Monica I found, saying basically that I thought she might be Monica from the fourth grade in so-and-so’s class at my old elementary school in the city where I grew up, and that I remembered she had to move out of the state part of the way through the school year. I simply asked her if she was, in fact, the Monica that I once knew…
After re-reading the message a few times, I hesitated, with my finger hovering over the mouse button that would select “send.” I had an odd feeling, and I realized that this was a peculiar and borderline questionable usage of Facebook for me. I was feeling like tiny alarms were ringing and red flags were going up, but…
I hit “send.”
Almost immediately, the question that had been growing in my mind came to the forefront, “What are you doing?”
This is one of those God questions. After they ate the forbidden fruit, God asked Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” He asked Cain after he committed the first murder, “Where is your brother Abel?” When Satan had to report to God in the book of Job, God asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” God knows all the answers, of course, but the question is for the benefit of the hearer, for directed reflection.
This is where we sort of stammer in response, and begin to try and justify… “well, I just wanted to see what happened to her. I only sent an innocent little message. I don’t really mean anything by it…I just want to make sure she turned out okay!”
But I felt God begin to put His finger on something in my heart, and another question formed in my mind, “If she were unattractive to you, would you have been so interested to contact her?”
“Ouch!”
Maybe I wanted more than I was willing to admit to myself. Looking back on it, I think I wanted to be remembered by someone I cared for. It would be gratifying, even flattering, to find out that such a pretty girl, now a beautiful woman, was affected by separation from me for a year or two afterward, the way that I was affected by her disappearance. Validation was what I craved at that moment—I wanted to know that I meant something to someone important to me at that age. To be fondly or wistfully remembered is one of the greatest joys of the aged.
After careful consideration, I weighed my heart and realized that I would not have sent that message, taken that risk, gone against my better judgment, turned away from the warnings of the Living God, if there wasn’t something attractive that I felt like I needed in that moment and that I could easily secure for myself.
God helped me to see that I was seeking to fulfill a legitimate need for connection, significance, and recognition in a way that was unwise. In this case, smoldering coals in my soul were starting to glow. The fact is, I have known some husbands who have reconnected with an old flame through Facebook, put gas on the coals, and then set fire to their marriages and families to go after “the other woman.”
I don’t want to say here that it is a sin to contact someone through Facebook, but for me, at the time, my decision did not proceed from faith. Upon further examination of my heart, I realized I was vulnerable and needy, and that my choice to reach out was unwise. I’m sure the landscape of America is littered already with tombstones for destroyed marriages, with an inscribed quote from the husband, “I just wanted to see if she was fine… and she was FINE!”
“It was only a little note… it was only a phone call… it was only meeting for lunch… A man has to eat, you know!” It all starts with a small, seemingly innocent inclination to connect with someone.
The internet has lowered the collective moral guard in American culture. As a married Christian man, you might agree that it is morally unwise to go into a private room and have an intimate conversation with an attractive woman, yet it seems harmless enough to have that same conversation by email or IM. Essentially it is the same thing, it’s just that cyberspace and physical distance gives the illusion of safety and propriety, even as the net of compromise spreads over the planet.
So, back at my computer, I had just sent the message, and had the ensuing reflection with the Lord, and I realized that, in my situation, I had sinned and that I needed to tell my wife, Wendy, right away. She was running an errand at the time, and I wanted to tell her in person, so instead of calling her, and not trusting myself to bring it up later, I sent her an email so that I wouldn’t talk myself out of it in the meantime, saying,
“Hey,
I did something very uncharacteristic for me with Facebook, and want to tell you about it asap to remain above reproach.
Love,
Jeff”
Before I hit “send” on this message, I paused a little longer than with the email I sent to Monica, thinking, “this really isn’t that big a deal. I’ll probably cause more trouble than it’s worth by mentioning it. I’m making a mountain out of a molehill! This is embarrassing! Nobody ever needs to know, because I didn’t do anything wrong…!”
I hit “send.”
I am so glad I did. My flesh really did NOT want to tell Wendy about what I had done. My flesh tried to reason with me and make me afraid that she might begin to doubt me or become suspicious, or that I would lose respect in her eyes. Still, I knew it was the right thing to do, and I surrendered and humbled myself before the Lord, and before my wife. I was willing to take that risk in order to be right again with God, and with Wendy. I was willing to trust God for my future by being obedient in the NOW, whatever it would cost me later.
When she came home, my flesh was giving me the full court press to sugar-coat the confession and explain it with nonchalance, to present the mountain as a molehill, but I had sent that message ahead to Wendy by email, and it had a serious tone.
As it turned out, God gave me the words to accurately reveal the sin in my heart, to repent, and to ask for her forgiveness. She was gracious to me, and I think she respected me more for my choosing to share my weaknesses, and for my reliance on God, that He may be glorified.
Since then, I shared this incident with my close friends, and with my Community Group, and in my talk about “The Surrendered Moment” to the men at church. I didn’t want to set up a destructive pattern in my life, and I know that I need the accountability of transparent fellowship to guard against the cunning wiles of my flesh.
(Let me say here that I’ve made many other impulsive and more overt sinful choices since this time almost ten years ago that I didn’t handle with transparency and immediacy. I won’t allow myself any kind of pedestal or congratulations for being this careful consistently. I have shared this example from my life because it combines the subtleties of temptation and sin with a serious and appropriate repentance, and I daresay that most of us have these kinds of needs and opportunities without recognizing the danger and temptation in them, and that many of us have made deeper immoral choices setting foot on a path that seems as harmless).
Concerned friends have asked me if Monica ever responded. She never did. And you know what? The need for connection that I was looking to fill in reaching out to Monica was satisfied through my confession to the Lord and strengthening the connection to my wife, and we were closer because of it. I was reminded that I already have forgiveness, grace, and love, and that one of the keys to contentment is to value what you have more than what you don’t have.
What’s more, if you want to be remembered fondly, make decisions to honor God and those you have committed to love, and God Himself will bless you and enrich your moments, and even now will snatch your feet from the fire and save you from the seduction of “what if?” and the destruction of impulsive selfishness.
Surrender is a Window to LIFE
There is a final point that I’d like to highlight from what happened. Surrender to God is a like a window to LIFE, and life more abundantly. It’s like being in a burning building that only has one window for escape. The window is an opportunity to escape the flames and to live and breathe freely, but if you stay you will choke and burn.
Many of us are choosing to stay in the burning building in our present moments. We are choked with fear and worry, but we will not go through that window because of the unknown on the other side. We would rather maintain the illusion of control over our own lives than to surrender to an authority that in many ways we distrust. We say to ourselves, “if I jump through that window, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But if I stay in here, I might find another way out.”
1 Cor. 10:13-14. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.” ESV.
NOW is All You Have
The fact is, you are swimming in temptations to save yourself or to make your own way. You only have right NOW to surrender—you can’t go back and surrender your past because it can’t be undone, and, when it comes down to it, you can’t be sure that you will even be alive one hour from now, so you can’t really surrender the future. You can pray that God will give you insight and words and strength for that big opportunity tomorrow, but when tomorrow comes so that it turns into NOW, you might find yourself out of synch with God because you have succumbed to the temptation to live the moment in your own wisdom and strength, or chasing after idols, or ruled by your fears. Or you might be dead tomorrow.
I don’t want to manipulate you with that, but to state the truth in a sobering way. We all know someone that has died young, whether a child or young adult. No one is guaranteed another “now.”
I think, when it comes down to it, we don’t trust God enough to surrender to Him moment by moment. We value the comfort and ease that we feel we can secure for ourselves, more than the uncontrollable and unpredictable abundant life that God offers us through our surrender. We fear that God will not be enough for us if we give up control to Him—that He will not save us if we step out in faith, and that we will lose the praise of men by following the Lord Jesus too closely.
Does surrender scare you? If you are in Christ, you have the Spirit of the Living God!!! Col. 2:9 says, “For in Christ, all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority…” NIV 1984.
His power and authority is absolute, so that the One who is with us is greater than all other powers put together. Consider Philippians 2:9…”Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” NIV 1984.
Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, is Faithful and True, and He is yours. NOW is your testimony about Him. Surrender the moment, and let GOD be praised!!!