A MOMENT OF CLARITY
My pastor told about a man who came to the altar that nobody recognized. He threw himself across the altar and began crying out to God. After a while the pastor knelt beside him and asked, "God is good, and He can do anything. What do you need the Lord to do for you?"
The man answered, "I want my wife to come home."
The pastor asked, "Why did she leave?"
He replied, "Because I'm a drunk and I can't hold a job."
The pastor said, "Well, let's pray that the Lord will help you stop drinking so you can keep a job."
The man stopped him.
"Whoa! I don't want to quit drinking or get a job. I just want her to come home."
He could see the problem. He could even see the solution. He simply wasn't interested in changing.
He wasn't repenting; he was lamenting.
There is a tremendous difference between regretting the consequences of sin and repenting of the sin itself. Our generation has become very good at lamenting its circumstances while refusing to repent of its ways.
Pharaoh had that same attitude.
When the Lord covered Egypt with frogs, Pharaoh became miserable. Frogs were everywhere—in the beds, in the ovens, in the palace, in the temples. Finally he called for Moses because he knew Moses served the true God.
Moses asked him a simple question: "When do you want the frogs removed?"
Pharaoh answered with one of the strangest words in Scripture:
"Tomorrow."
He knew the problem. He knew the solution. Yet he chose to live one more day with the frogs.
That is human nature.
Many people know exactly what needs to change in their lives, but they keep saying, "Tomorrow."
The truth is that most people in America do not lack a knowledge of right and wrong. We have Bibles in our homes. We have heard preaching. We know what God expects.
The problem is not ignorance.
The problem is willingness.
God has given every person a free will. He will never force anyone to obey Him. He allows us to choose our own path, and the life we are living today is largely the result of the choices we have made.
It is easy to blame our parents, our government, our spouse, our finances, or even the devil. While those things certainly influence our lives, they do not remove our responsibility before God.
Yet God is merciful.
Every so often He stops us in our tracks and gives us what I call a moment of clarity.
In those moments we see ourselves honestly. We recognize the direction we are headed. We know what needs to change.
Then we have a choice. Will we repent?
Or will we walk away?
The Bible is filled with people who experienced moments of clarity.
Jonah had one in the belly of the great fish. God had called him to Nineveh, but Jonah boarded a ship going the opposite direction. The Lord did not force him to obey. Instead, He arranged Jonah's circumstances until obedience became the better option. At the bottom of the sea, inside the fish, Jonah finally saw clearly. In that moment of clarity, he chose repentance.
King Saul had a moment of clarity as well.
Consumed with jealousy, Saul spent years trying to kill David. Yet David repeatedly spared Saul's life. On one occasion David cut off the skirt of Saul's robe simply to prove he could have killed him.
When Saul saw the piece of his robe, he broke down and wept.
"Thou art more righteous than I."
For a brief moment Saul saw himself exactly as he was. Everything necessary for repentance was present.
But he did not follow through.
Within only a few chapters, Saul was once again pursuing David. His moment of clarity passed because he refused to act upon it.
David, however, responded differently.
After his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, the prophet Nathan confronted him with a simple story about a stolen lamb. David immediately condemned the guilty man.
Nathan pointed his finger and declared, "Thou art the man."
David suddenly saw himself.
His judgment had never been the problem. Like many of us, he found it much easier to judge others than to judge himself. We often judge others by their actions while judging ourselves by our intentions.
But when David's moment of clarity came, he fell on his face before God in genuine repentance. It was a painful day, but it became the turning point of his life because he humbled himself before the Lord.
King Hezekiah experienced another kind of moment of clarity.
Though generally a good king, pride had taken root in his heart. Then Isaiah delivered a sobering message:
"Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live."
Hezekiah could have become angry. He could have argued. Instead, he turned his face to the wall and cried for mercy.
Before Isaiah had even left the palace, God sent him back with another message.
Hezekiah's life would be extended by fifteen years.
The difference was not that Hezekiah had never failed.
The difference was that when clarity came, he responded.
God still gives people these moments today.
Perhaps you know there is bitterness in your heart.
Perhaps your prayer life has grown cold.
Perhaps there is dishonesty, pride, immorality, or some hidden sin that you have quietly learned to tolerate.
You may already know exactly what God is dealing with you about.
The danger is not seeing it.
The danger is postponing repentance.
The Bible repeatedly reminds us that we cannot come to God whenever we please. Jesus said, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." Isaiah wrote, "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near."
Moments of clarity are gifts from God's mercy.
They do not last forever.
That is why Samson's story is so frightening.
He played games with sin until it became normal. Again and again Delilah tried to discover the secret of his strength. Each time Samson treated it like a game.
Eventually he surrendered the truth.
His hair was cut.
Then came one of the saddest verses in all of Scripture:
"He wist not that the LORD was departed from him."
Samson assumed he could always make things right later. He thought he could continue flirting with sin and repent whenever he was ready.
He was wrong.
By the time he realized what had happened, the moment had already passed.
That should sober every one of us.