When You Hit Bottom and Things are Great at the Same Time

^{NLT Ps. 51:3} For I recognize my rebellion;
    it haunts me day and night.
⁴ Against you, and you alone, have I sinned;
    I have done what is evil in your sight.

I realized yesterday that I had hit bottom.

Let me qualify that a little, I realized that I had hit bottom in one specific area of my life.

You can actually be doing great in other areas, but have this one area where you struggle; where your responses are not always ideal; where your outlook or worldview is being shaped more by popular consensus or culture than by God’s Word.

Paraphrased, the first step of the classic “Twelve Step” program is, ‘We admitted we had a problem.’ It’s hard for people in ministry to do this. It’s especially hard for church leaders and pastors to admit such things. It’s really difficult when you’re a person that everyone looks up to and admires as a spiritually mature person to realize you see yourself as crashing in a particular area of life.

Instead, you start to believe your own press. You can buy into the image that people have of you. You can decide that nine-out-of-ten is good enough. You can rationalize that the ministry is still happening, people are still getting saved, money is still being raised, the teaching is still being distributed. You don’t admit weakness, that would be letting people down.

I can only imagine what it’s like when you’re the king, especially when your nation or state is somewhat theocratic in nature.  Like King David.

Psalm 51 is his particular prayer of confession. While I usually don’t use this translation, I want to quote from the second half of verse 3 and the first half of verse 4 in the KJV.

…my sin is ever before me.

David admits he can’t run and he can’t hide from the thing he has done, or the person he has become. It’s what he sees when looks in the mirror. He owns up to it. I believe that whatever sin we give into, no matter how private, no matter how secret; it will manifest itself at some point in some more open way. Bathsheba presented a tremendous opportunity — her husband was away at the time — but it wasn’t the first time David had looked at a woman. Or perhaps not even the first time David had hatched a scheme.

You don’t become an adulterer overnight. It happens when you have failed to pre-book your choices. It happens when you’ve never recognized your susceptibility. It happens when pride gives you spiritual over-confidence.

Then he says,

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned…

Jerry Bridges says, “We never see sin aright unless we see it as against God.”

• When you maligned your co-worker, you sinned not against them, but against God
• When you cheated on that test, you sinned not against the school or the teacher, but against God
• When you falsified that document, you sinned not against the organization or the government, but against God
• When you flirted with the girl in the grocery store, you sinned not against them or against your wife, but against God

You get the pattern.

Some of the resolutions people made at the start of the year are long broken. If they carried with them moral or spiritual significance, it isn’t just a personal letdown, you don’t just fail yourself, but rather it’s sin against God.

…I did not commit adultery or cause a neighbor to be put in the front lines of a battle to be killed. But I really felt I hit bottom in one particular area. One some might even dismiss. However…

If it’s big enough to notice, it’s important enough to deal with.