A Bag Full of Rattlesnakes

My last reason for the length of my wallowing was probably the most ludicrous of all. I wallowed in my sin because I thought I had no other choice. As we’ve discussed before, the enemy of my soul had convinced me I was stuck right where I was, lying at the bottom where the hurt had become greater than the enjoyment, where emptiness overrode pride, and where want overcame the desire to have my own way. I was only trapped in guilt by then.
Can’t you just hear the prodigal son right now? “There is no way I can go back to my father’s house!” The enemy whispers in his ear, telling him, “There is no way your father will take you back!” His stubborn prideful flesh shouts in his other ear, “How would it look for you to go groveling back to your daddy a miserable failure?”
When all that fades away because of his extreme emptiness, his own mind attacks him. “After what you’ve done, you don’t deserve to return to your father’s house!”
The prodigal son and I found ourselves in the same place as Isaiah, stuck between guilt and forgiveness. The truth is it’s not just a place visited by us three but by everyone who had a Christ encounter. It seems Isaiah was there for a very short time, the prodigal son for an undetermined time, and I for over five years. The enemy of our soul attacks all of us with guilt when an encounter with Christ opens our eyes to where we are in our sins. Satan uses our guilt to keep us in our sin. God sends His spirit to replace our guilt with conviction. Guilt keeps us stuck; conviction leads to getting us unstuck.
In his guilt, Isaiah said he was doomed. Let me remind you the Word says the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. The destruction comes by killing us while we are still in our sin, and guilt keeps us there, holding us short of forgiveness. Satan wanted to kill the prodigal son from starvation before he came to his senses. He wanted to kill Isaiah while his lips were still filthy, and he wanted to kill me while guilt’s grip held me tightly.
In the early morning hours of what would become a hot August day in Conway, Arkansas, I was sitting on the edge of my bed in a one-bedroom apartment. I was in want, but I saw no way back and no way out. I pulled open the drawer to the nightstand. Lying in the bottom of that drawer was what guilt told me was my only way out, a loaded semiautomatic .38 pistol. I picked it up and held it in my lap. The tears streaming from my eyes began to cover the silver-colored metal. Stuck with no choice, no way out, and no hope.
Suddenly, it was like an invisible arm reached around me. My mind began to be filled with the names of all who had reached out to me and who I knew were praying for me—Anthony, Jim, Faith, James, and Ken. It was as though all those prayers were now bombarding my spirit. I prayed, I cried, and I placed the lie back in the drawer and pushed it shut. I knew what I had to do, return to my Father’s house. But I didn’t realize how long would be the road back or that I was not just going back. I was going beyond back.