I can’t really say what triggered it all. I only knew as I sat in my office nearly a year ago that I was at the end of myself, which is a very good thing. For months I had felt I was going through the motions in worship, public prayers, and preaching. Sundays began to feel more like something to survive than a day set aside as holy unto the Lord. I felt myself trying to survive the next sermon and get through the next set of Sunday activities. I felt ill prepared and less prayed up week after week. I was preaching God’s word but I had lost the passion, the fire, the zeal, and the faith to believe that God’s word was making a difference in people’s lives. One particular Sunday morning I had enough. I was determined to get a fresh word from the Lord for the service or preach nothing at all. I refused to go through the motions for another Sunday.
I had one of those encounters with the Lord that in hindsight proves to be a spiritual marker. I have had several of them along the way. There was the spiritual marker at Abe Martin Stadium in Lufkin, TX where I met the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior. There was the spiritual marker at Pineywoods Baptist Encampment where I knew the Lord called me to preach and I surrendered my life to that call. There was the spiritual maker of meeting and talking to Brenda on the campus of Howard Payne University and knowing she was God’s best divinely chosen to be my helpmate. She has been that and so much more over the past seventeen years. There have been several spiritual makers in what I affectionately call my “prayer retreat cabin” located outside of Palestine, TX. I also have had numerous such spiritual markers right here in this same office I have met God for these three years. One encounter with the Lord on a Sunday morning really stands out.
I did not know it at the time, but my time with the Lord in my office on October 7, 2007 was a time that I will not soon forget. I was convicted and broken and the message the Lord burned in my soul that morning was more for me personally than for anyone in our church. It was a message about offering the Lord defiled offerings and blemished sacrifices, or in short giving God our second best.
I prayed through [Malachi 1:6-14] and used that as my text. Sitting on the front pew during the worship service before it was time to preach was agonizing. I knew that my own personal sin in not offering the Lord with my very best in study and preaching had hindered our church. It was time to come clean and acknowledge my sin as well as the sin of the rest of our congregation for falling into the same trap during Sunday morning worship. I also knew that many people were falling into the same sin I was and it was time to “shut the gates and quit uselessly kindling fire on God’s altar.” [Malachi 1:10] God not only deserves our best in worship but demands it as well.
After preaching the message I withdrew from the crowd, found a secluded closet to hide in, and lay prostrate on the dirty floor to seek the face of God. What took place in that small dirty little closet will be lived out over the next months and prayerfully for the rest of my life. How do you put into words those intimate encounters with the Lord when He gives you audience with Him and His presence is so very real?
It was pitch dark inside that closet. It was not as dark as my sin riddled heart was before God though. .I was broken and for the longest time could only manage one prayer over and over again, “God, I am sorry. God, I am sorry. God, I am so sorry for offering defiled and polluted offerings and sacrifices to You. Please forgive me.” The tears could not be held back as they fell into puddles beneath my face. My heart was broken for the people of Paradise but I was much more broken knowing that I had offended God. Like David, my sin was ever before me and I came to understand in a fresh way that against God I had sinned. [Ps 51:3-4] “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.” It was a painful time filled with brokenness. My heart was contrite and I was humbled in His presence. I could not make any empty promises being reminded of God’s warning in [Eccl 5:2] “Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore let your words be few.”
I was broken over the lost passion I once had for preaching God’s Word. I recall how I used to rise so early on Sunday mornings to prayerfully get ready to preach. All that changed somewhere. It was not intentional. Somewhere along the way I grew tired of praying and preaching my heart out and seeing so few results. I am not just talking about visible results. I’m talking about not seeing the internal results of a changed and transformed life and congregation over the years. So I began to rationalize that my job was to preach the truth and the listener was responsible to God to respond. On the surface this sounds true but what changed for me was my expectation for God to move. I became calloused in my heart during the invitations and I lost the burning fiery passion to not only preach but to believe God for results. I became the very thing I have abhorred in others. I became a professional preacher with a hard heart.
Each tear represented a dead and lifeless sermon (or rather I should say a speech) I had delivered devoid of power and passion. As painful as that time was, it was needed. It had been a long time since the Lord had held the mirror to my heart and really let me see the sin that had long been rooted there. Uprooting sin is never a pleasant thing. It is painful but for me the pain of not preaching with passion and anointing and offering God my best would be more painful.
I don’t know how long I was in that closet of humiliation and crying tears of repentance. I know when I got up I was a new man. Cleansed. Forgiven. Renewed. Refreshed. Revived. Most importantly I was restored to my Father. Since then I have found a renewed passion to meet with Him for long and sustained unhurried times of prayer. I have felt a new passion rising in me to deliver His word both verbally and through writing. I have been called into a fresh desire to study, to preach and to write all to make much of Him and not me.
I left that closet a new man. I cannot help but feel, if more Christians went into their prayer closets with true repentance and brokenness, what a positive impact this would have on our walks with the Lord and our churches. Day by day we drift a little further away from the Lord, grow a little harder in our hearts, accept the dry and weary conditions of our spiritual lives, begin to allow compromise to uproot former commitments, and grow accustomed and satisfied with offering our great God second rate, polluted, defiled, and half hearted sacrifices. He deserves and demands our very best.
When was the last time you took a real honest look in the spiritual mirror? When was the last time you were moved to tears of repentance because of your sin? When was the last time you felt authentic in your worship and service to the Lord? If you have been giving God your leftovers in time, energy, and devotion maybe you need to withdraw from family and friends and go into the closet of brokenness and repentance. Life, forgiveness, and healing await you on the other side.
Not long after that encounter with God, I was moving some chairs in a room where that same closet is located. The door was left open and I stared into that small isolated dark corner of our church for a few moments. I was immediately reminded of my encounter with the Lord in that place. I will always remember that as the closet of brokenness and repentance. I am sure I will find my way back there from time to time. I hope you do too.
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