My mom was standing by the kitchen table, waiting for me when I walked in from my day at school (senior year of high school). Hands on her hips. A stern look of shock and disbelief on her face. Eyes boring into me. She put it like this: "I was down praying today and the Holy Spirit told me to go look in your bottom-left drawer of your dresser. And that (!) is what I found" (pointing to Playboy magazine on table).
I could've come clean, then and there.
But racked by guilt and shame I chose instead to lie. Keep hiding.
"I bought that magazine because of the article about that Alfa Romeo car." Looked her in the eye and told her a bold-faced lie. I had read the article on the car, but I bought the magazine to enhance the pleasure of my sexual sin.
When I lied, I failed God's test of my character. Failed the integrity check. Missed the opportunity to confess and pray for healing, the opportunity to come into the Light and be cleansed. That decision led to 8 more years of enslavement in sexual sin, throughout my college years and ministry as a youth pastor.
God was at work that day, through my mother. God was opening a door for freedom. I chose to stay locked in my sin. "Sin is crouching at the door," God said to Cain, "and it seeks to have you" (Genesis 4:7). God could just as easily have said that to me.
Where are you experiencing God calling you to come clean? Where have you recently failed an integrity check?
