Not Ashamed

In her journal, one of my ancestors relates her eagerness to go to a Klan rally in her town. Her best friend picked her up and they rode around town to see the Klansmen gathered. Their presence brought "order and quiet" everywhere they went, and "Not a Darkie could be seen for a mile." She says, "We loved it... those were the days!" To her, the Klan rally honored white citizens like her as the dominant social group, and excluded Black Americans as she felt they should be. The Klan came as a group to the center of town to burn a cross to publicly demonstrate the social hierarchy.

For most of my life, I thought placing our faith in Jesus, or believing the gospel, was how to determine who was in and who was out. We knew how to count the Christians or church members by identifying those who had said the scripted prayer and shared the expected testimony. "I was a sinner. I put my faith in Jesus, and now I am going to heaven." But what if the gospel is much bigger than we imagined?

Around mile 19 of the Atlanta Thanksgiving Day Marathon, I hit the wall. The smallest gust of cold air reminded me of walking into the open freezer room at Costco. My legs had turned into sacks of wet sand. If I could just use my arms to lift them up, I could keep going. I knew I could finish, but I wasn't sure I wanted to.

As I drove my family home from a relaxing trip to the beach, a bright yellow billboard suddenly caught my attention. In bold, red letters, it announced, "SIN HAS CONSEQUENCES" and beneath it, "REPENT." I've never felt attacked by a billboard before. But this one felt like it was yelling at me. Is that what Christianity is about?

"I'm telling you that I don't know God. I've read the Bible, I've studied apologetics, I've gone to church. But I don't see any evidence that God exists." I felt stuck. The Bible says that God has made his existence evident to everyone. But my friend told me that he didn't see any evidence for God. He seemed completely sincere.