183 Questions

Have you ever sat in an office for two hours while being interrogated, to the tune of 183 questions, about intimate, personal details of your life? I'm not just talking about your life back to the last decade, or perhaps the last few years, when you've gotten your act together. I'm talking about questions that cover your whole life - even those brain-damaged years from junior high through college.

Have you ever performed an act that would be considered a crime? Have you ever been with someone when they were committing a crime? Have you ever defaulted on a loan, written a bad check, had overdraft fees? Have credit companies ever contacted you regarding a debt? Have you ever taken drugs? Have you ever been with others who have taken drugs? Have you ever been in a fight? Domestic violence? Pornography? Items taken from work? Fired from a job? Reprimanded?

The questions weren't just generalities, either. They were specific, comprehensive and, as noted, numerous. Ugh. It was a grueling test of integrity and a reminder of the man I've both been and become, of where I am and whence I've come. Despite the fact that I felt confident answering all of the questions without purpose of evasion (though I felt almost compelled to qualify so many of them), I grew increasingly uncomfortable at the intimacy of the questions. This is my life, unfolded before my eyes - again.

I know the details of my life, or so I thought. It's funny how selective our memory is - and we tend to remember what good people we are. It's not until someone asks the hard questions that we are reminded of the sins (and sinfulness) of our past, and even of our present. Like most (I hope), I remember all of my good deeds, but this was an exercise in brutally honest recall.

It was so instructive that I gathered my kids when I got home in order to offer a "teachable moment." I recounted many of the questions for them and shared what it felt like answering each of the questions when you couldn't always answer on solid, moral ground. There were times when it was clear my integrity was not as completely intact as I remembered it. What decisions would my kids make today, and in the years to come, that someone would pry them about decades from now? How would you feel answering some of the really brutal questions (many not offered here) in front of a stranger?

The transcendant question is even more compelling: How will we feel standing before a just and holy God with even deeper questions remaining, with the clear impossibility of evasion? Yes, God is forgiving, if we've accessed Him on His terms. I answered those questions before a man, knowing I have been forgiven for my past acts - and it still was uncomfortable enough to make me want to crawl out of my skin. How much less comfortable will be my comeuppance in His presence.

The odd thing is that I only act now like all of those things are not already before Him, writ large on my soul, showing my degradation as clearly as the growing number of wrinkles on my face display my age. It is with great relief that I can rest on Christ's imputed righteousness and go before His throne with confidence, knowing that God the Father sees me through the filter of the blood of Jesus.

Alas! And did my Saviour bleed?
And did my Saviour die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?

Was it for crimes that I had done,
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide,
And shut his glories in;
When Christ the mighty Maker died
For man the creature's sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face,
While his dear cross appears;
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt mine eyes in tears.

But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give myself away,
'Tis all that I can do.