I knew something had to change; I just didn’t know what. So, my solution quickly became: try harder, sin less. Then, it would be as if I had never struggled, for no one would have been there to hear the proverbial tree fall. Bad plan. My efforts gave way to failure. My failures gave way to hopelessness. My hopelessness gave way to callousness. I was exhausted. So, I kept the God who loved me at arm’s length, and I sought fulfillment elsewhere while still trying to maintain my image as a good Christian. And while I nervously gripped my salvation, I secretly wondered whether God would decide to take me out of this world for my inability to pull myself together.

Fast-forward a bit: I had just started my management consulting career out of college, and I was preparing to propose to my girlfriend. At the time, I was still in the depths of my sin, shame, and addiction. I still deeply desired transformation, but my motto was still the same: try harder, sin less. On the surface, everything seemed fine, but I was still wrestling with self-hatred and loneliness. Then, one summer evening in East Texas, I proposed, and she said, “Yes.” As we prepared for marriage, we enrolled in a premarital counseling program. Overall, the program was challenging but manageable, but there was one looming activity that terrified me: disclosure. The exercise was simple and logical: share the skeletons in our closets so they wouldn’t have power over us in our future marriage.

That night didn’t arrive suddenly. I knew about it months in advance. I knew it was coming. I had a plan, and it was simple. If I cleaned up my act before that night, my past would be a polished piece in my personal museum. Just one problem: I couldn’t do it. That night arrived, and I was torn up. I wanted to hide, but I couldn’t hide any longer. Years ago, I had slipped my mask off for her to see, dipping my toes into the waters of vulnerability. It did not go well. In fact, it went horribly. I hurt her. I felt even more alone and rejected, and she did too, but somehow our relationship survived. So, by this point, I figured it was only a matter of time before everything crumbled. I emotionally prepared myself for the fallout, the embarrassment, and the public shame of our engagement being called off.

The night began. We were sitting together on my twin bed in my childhood home. I let her lead, and then I comforted her as she shared what she described as her secret sins, but I knew they paled in comparison to mine. It was finally my turn, and the crushing weight of the moment came down on me. I was terrified and anxious, but I flipped on the lights to the basement of my soul. I showed her my dirtiness, my helplessness, my addiction, my shame, my unworthiness, my self-hatred… myself. I told her that I still prayed prayers of salvation, that I was afraid of God because He knew me, that I felt God was angry and disappointed in me, and that I was expecting God to smite me for my sins any day, a punishment I felt I deserved.

I expected to overwhelm her, to send her into an angry, wounded fit, to cause cold apathy as she wrestled with betrayal. I wasn’t the man of God she thought I was, much less the one she deserved. Then, it started. Tears began to roll down her face. Her eyes, red. The veins in her face, emerging. I could barely bring myself to look at her, opting instead to look down at the sheets that faithfully swaddled me in my sin. “Look at me,” she said. I pushed down the shame to meet her gaze. Her face wasn’t one of anger and hatred. It was one of compassion and love. Her eyes carried the weight of my suffering, and her cheeks were wet with tears I hadn’t even been able to shed for myself. “I love you, and I forgive you.” I broke. My throat closed up; my vision blurred with tears. I had no words, but I couldn’t have gotten them out anyway. “Jesus has forgiven me, and so I forgive you. I am so sorry.”

That night changed me, not just because I had received compassion from my fiancée, but because I had received compassion from God. Leading up to that night, the plan to clean myself up wasn’t unique to that set of circumstances. I had also been using the same plan with God, keeping Him away until I could clean myself up to be in His presence once more. So, each time I thought about confessing my sins to Him, I ran, and each time I did confess my sins to Him, I avoided His gaze. I didn’t need to look. I could practically see the look of disappointment, anger, and betrayal on His face, just as I could see it on my fiancée’s—or at least, I thought I could. So, when I encountered the gaze of my fiancée, I simultaneously experienced the gaze of Jesus. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t ashamed. He wasn’t distant. He was near. His eyes were wet with my suffering, His stomach churning with compassion. His invitation was gentle and soft. It was as if He pressed into my soul the same exact words, “I love you, and I forgive you.”

It was like I could finally rest, like I could finally come alive. I guess that, in my shame, I found creative ways to avoid meeting His gaze. In staring at the floor, I simply imagined all of the ways God was disappointed in and tired of me, only to miss seeing that He was crying with me all along. It turns out that God really is that loving, merciful, compassionate, and gracious. Even as I’ve spent more and more time with Him, I’m still struck that He describes His heart as “gentle and lowly” (Matthew 11:29) and His glory as “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6).

Since that night, things have been so much better, and He has brought healing from my addiction. The more I look at God and let Him love me, the more I am transformed, finding myself looking at God and loving Him in return. But, in case you’re wondering, no, I still haven’t arrived. I know there’s still so much more goodness, love, and life to experience in God, and I don’t want to wait until I die or until Jesus returns to experience it.

Being with Jesus is true life, yet I still experience suffering today; I’ve heard our Christian experience described as a love story set in a war zone, and I relate to that. Since that life-changing moment, I’ve staggered through panic attacks, afraid to connect with other humans and crippled by anxiety. I’ve wrestled to believe that I have value beyond what I can ascribe to myself, learning to see myself through God’s eyes. And I’m still learning to let go of vain efforts to earn a love that’s priceless yet freely given. So the difference isn’t that I no longer struggle, but that I’m learning my struggle does not separate me from God’s love.

I still desperately want to hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” as if those words could prove I’ve done enough. But instead, He whispers, “My son. My child. My beloved.” I used to think that the more I sinned, the more of God’s grace I consumed. My goal was to show God that I didn’t need as much grace because I could work hard to avoid sin as if to say, “See, God, look, I’m not a wasted investment.” But as the late American philosopher and Christian theologian Dallas Willard observes, we consume more grace when we truly begin to live in God’s righteousness. In his book, Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ, he writes:

"To 'grow in grace' means to utilize more and more grace to live by, until everything we do is assisted by grace. Then, whatever we do in word or deed will all be done in the name of the Lord Jesus (Colossians 3:17). The greatest saints are not those who need less grace, but those who consume the most grace, who indeed are most in need of grace—those who are saturated by grace in every dimension of their being. Grace to them is like breath."

I’m learning that transformation does not come from making myself worthy of grace, but from receiving more of it. So, as I live and move and have my being, may I consume more and more of God’s grace. May I be filled with His Holy Spirit and saturated by His grace throughout every dimension of my being. May I operate from love, not for it. My story isn’t finished, and neither is yours. We still have breath in our lungs and more of God’s grace and love to experience. This life is hard, but one day, God will wipe away every tear; suffering will be a distant memory; and all harm will be redeemed (Revelation 21:4; Romans 8:18, 8:28). Through my story and songs, I hope you find rest in the transforming love of God and freedom from the exhaustion of trying to earn it.

With love,
Christopher Tung