Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Two Roads: Choosing Softness or Hardness {Reflections}
Have you ever wondered if there's more to spiritual conviction than just feeling bad about your sins? That nagging feeling might actually be an invitation to something deeper and more transformative.
Taking you on a journey from my Christian upbringing through my time with Youth with a Mission, I share a personal revelation about what conviction truly means. It's not simply God making you feel guilty—it's a profound moment when your eyes are opened to see reality clearly, perhaps for the first time. Through my own story of compulsive lying and a sleepless night in South Africa that changed everything, I explore how conviction brings us to a critical crossroads in our spiritual journey.
When the Spirit gently reveals the truth about our actions and their consequences, we face a choice that shapes our character: will we respond with humility and repentance, allowing our hearts to soften? Or will we double down, gradually hardening ourselves against truth? The paths diverge dramatically, and the further we walk down either road, the harder it becomes to change direction. As Eugene Peterson wisely noted, faith is "a long obedience in the same direction"—and conviction moments determine which direction we're heading.
This episode invites you to reframe how you understand spiritual conviction and to embrace these moments of clarity as gifts rather than punishments. When God opens your eyes to see things as they truly are, how will you respond? Share your thoughts with us and join the conversation about navigating these pivotal moments in our spiritual lives. Your journey of faith might transform when you begin to see conviction as an invitation to growth rather than a spiritual guilt trip.
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What is up everybody? Hey, my name is Ryan and welcome to episode number 92. 92, here we go. So I'm excited to be here, I'm glad you're here, and when I was growing up, I grew up in a Christian home, went to an organization called YWAM or Youth with a Mission, and then, of course now I work at a church and I've been a part of Young Life, so I've got this eclectic kind of religious Christian background, which I'm so thankful for.
Speaker 1:But one of the things that one of the pieces of language that was used a lot from when I was little to older, now even was this idea of the conviction of God or the conviction of the Holy Spirit that when you wander off the path, when we engage in sin, that God would bring his conviction. And what they mean by that is oftentimes when we express it. I think for a lot of us it means like, oh, I was, suddenly I felt bad about my sin, and so, like when the Spirit shows up and you're living in sin or whatever, there is like this conviction from God or from the Holy Spirit and you suddenly feel bad about what you were doing, and then you repent and fair enough. But I think we might be missing a step in there. So maybe this will help, maybe not, but I hope it does help. But I don't think conviction is necessarily just the action of God coming to make you feel bad about your sin. I think that feeling bad about your sin is good, that's fine, but I think it misses the step. And the step, I think really where the conviction is is. I think conviction is simply about seeing things accurately, and so I think it does take the spirit to show up when we're engaging in certain kinds of behavior. And obviously sin is more than just behavior, but it manifests as like behaviors. So sin, capital S sin, is this bigger thing, this cancerous sort of you know, I don't know self-love run amok that has infected the whole culture and society. But I really mean in more in terms like maybe just in your own life, this sort of small S sin, the things that you do, like a manifestation of the bigger S sin. And anyway, I think that we engage in these behaviors or thought patterns or ways of being in the world that are destructive and they don't bring life, and it's sin. And I think when God shows up and it's not like God shows up, but you know what I mean. Like that God kind of brings conviction. What he's doing, what God is doing, what the Spirit is doing, is just opening our eyes to like how things really are working and softening our hearts where they've grown hardened and opening our ears where they've grown deaf, and we suddenly see all kinds of things we've never seen before. It's like the way you were behaving which maybe you weren't aware of or didn't see, or in its fullness, like suddenly you now see it and it's like right in front of you. It can be quite dramatic and that might cause us to feel like, ooh, not great.
Speaker 1:So when I was younger I used to lie all the time, like all the time, and I grew up. It was a survival thing for me. I would lie to get out of trouble, stay out of trouble. Then it became just a pattern for me. I would lie to get out of trouble, stay out of trouble. That became just a pattern, a habit, because that's what happens. You sort of. You know my buddy always says at first you choose sin and then later sin kind of chooses you. That's deep, you know. And so I just became this like liar all the time and I went to YWAM Youth with a Mission and long story short. But I was there. I was actually. I had flown to South Africa with about 20 other people and there I was, there doing ministry, like I was a Christian, doing ministry.
Speaker 1:But this old habit of lying, it did not go away. It died hard. And I got caught in this lie and it was like dramatic, and I, like I did what I was used to doing, which I just doubled, tripled down on the fact that I was no, I'm not, I'm not lying. And I had been called out by a leader for lying and he knew I'd lied. But I did not relent and I just, over and over again, just doubled down.
Speaker 1:And that night I went to bed because the leader's like, hey, let's just talk about it in the morning and we'll just all go to bed and just think about it and regather in the morning. And I was like I went to bed and I'm like I'm not going. I prayed, I said God, if you want me to confess this lie, then have me not sleep well tonight, which was a silly prayer. God would be like no, no, you're fine, dude, it's okay to lie. Just sleep well, bud.
Speaker 1:No, I did not sleep well all night it was this realization of how much, as I was lying there in bed, I had this awakening, like this revelation, like of how much my lies had hurt people, how it broke trust, how people didn't like me in some ways and pockets because of how I lied and I, all of a sudden, I saw everything clearly and I just felt broken. I just began to cry. Actually, I went back that next morning to confess it to my leader. I totally lied and as I confessed it, I just broke. I was like I just started weeping and so, yeah, like I definitely didn't feel good about it and the conviction of the Holy Spirit led to me feeling bad about my sin.
Speaker 1:But the step in between there was like this, I had this the Spirit kind of came and very gently opened my eyes to how much pain I'd caused and the trust I'd broken and like the kind of person I was becoming and like I don't want to be that kind of person. And it was almost like there was like this crossroads Cause, I think, the conviction, when, when God opens our eyes, it's almost like you have these two choices, like you have this, you're at a crossroads, and God says, hey, now that you see this. Now that I've shown it to you, you can't unsee it, but you can respond in two ways. One you can repent and you can make yourself humble and low and soft and go and apologize and make things right and figure it out, and I'll help you. And if you do that, you'll become softer in my hands, your heart will become renewed, your eyes will be open even more, your ears will become even more able to hear me clearly, and you'll kind of live in tune with me as I've created the world, and live in sort of this you know way of being in the world that I've designed you to live, and it's great, that's life.
Speaker 1:Do that, but also you can go the other way, ryan, like you can go the other way and hide it and keep doubling or tripling down on it and not become open and soft and I'm like no, I'm not going to repent and I'm going to keep choosing my own selfish ways. And when you do that, though, ryan, your heart will become a little bit harder and your ears a little bit deafer to my voice and your eyes less able to see things as they really are, and the conviction of the Holy Spirit becomes sort of harder to, kind of, for you to receive it, because you just keep going and then it's like these two pathways and you can pick either way. But repent, choose life. Don't go the other way and become hardened, because now that you're walking down that path imagine walking on those divergent pathways and fast forward 15, 20, 30 years Now you're really far down that pathway and it becomes even harder to get off that path and go a different direction.
Speaker 1:So when the conviction of the Holy Spirit comes, this idea of you opening your eyes a bit more and seeing things yourself, maybe as though in a mirror, clearly, or your own behavior and the destruction it brings, or the relationships it hurts, you know, may you become soft in God's hand and may you soften your heart towards him. May you choose to repent and apologize and be humbled and go that road and do that over and over and, over and over again. This is what obedience looks like. It's what faith looks like. Eugene Peterson calls faith a long obedience in the same direction. Don't go the other way and close your eyes and deaden your ears and keep your hard heart, because that's the way of destruction and it's just the way of non-life. So today, may you experience the conviction of the Holy Spirit, this idea of God opening your eyes a bit more, and may you respond in a way that brings life All right, peace. Love you guys.
Speaker 2:Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget, you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8.30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering. Or you can check us out online at clcelkriverorg Peace.
