The Bishop’s staff
It’s often called a besetting sin: a sin that an individual constantly struggles with. We’re all unique, and so will tend towards differing bad habits or attitudes. Perhaps the writer to the Hebrews had those personal flaws in mind when writing about the ‘sin that so easily entangles’ (Heb. 21:1). Besetting sins are deep potholes gouged into the pathways of our lives. It’s prudent to know where they are and steer around them.
Recently, I did a risk assessment on myself. Looking back over my shoulder, scanning decades as a disciple, I asked the uncomfortable question: Where am I consistently the weakest? The list grew alarmingly long. Pride frequently nips at my heels, and I’m prone to allow the stale taste of bitterness to sour my stomach. I don’t really struggle with envy – I find it easy to celebrate when others are blessed more than me – but hailing from a cash-starved working-class family means that over preoccupation with money might be an issue. There are others I won’t list, to spare you boredom and me embarrassment. But I believe I have identified my premier, besetting sin. It is independence from God.
In my early days, I was obsessed with being in the will of God, and read every book I could find about guidance (having first prayed that I might be in the will of God and find the right book about the will of God). It was agonising as I fretted about whether to shop at Sainsbury’s or Tesco, terrified that I might miss the opportunity to talk about Jesus while reaching into the freezer for some fish fingers. It was all rather silly, and bad for my mental health. I felt like I was trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle with 10,000 pieces and terrified that I might fail in the process. And failure might mean – according to my flawed thinking – that I would live a second-best life, disconnected always from God’s best. The will of God, in my mind, was a tightrope, with me wobbling away 100 feet up, and with no safety net to catch me. So I did what we often do, I swung away from such neurotic practices, and took my life in my own hands. I talked about pendulums earlier, and this was another one of my reactionary moments.
Taking control and making my own decisions worked out well until my ministry impact began to expand. Opportunities to write and speak multiplied and threatened to paralyse me. So God gave me a clunky reminder to stay close. Attending a Christian leaders conference, I was invited onstage and presented with a bishop’s staff, which had previously belonged to Bishop Huddleston who campaigned against apartheid in South Africa. ‘Carry the staff with you whenever in ministry,’ prophesied the one leading the evening. ‘It will be a reminder to depend on God and not on yourself.’ So I did, for a few years.
Some people thought I was mad, others a bit pretentious. Finally, the staff got lost in the bowels of a United Airlines baggage hold, and I thanked God... and forgot the lesson. Slowly, imperceptibly, the tentacles of independence from God began to wrap around me again.
Independence is a subtle sin but one that the Bible confronts. In his hard-hitting epistle, James rebukes those who live lives not fully given over to Christ, and ignore the purposes of God as they make choices and decisions. ‘Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow’ (James 4:13–14). It’s all too possible, having given our lives to Jesus, to slowly, gradually take them back again.
In my case, carting a clunky staff around wasn’t enough to rid me of my besetting independent sin. Without Jesus, we can do nothing, but sometimes we still try. So let this be our prayer: Lord Jesus, stay close, especially when an opportunity to become independent from You beckons. Amen. And Amen.