My time at 85th Street was crucial in my experience of the Gospel. At this place I found people who loved me and poured themselves out so that I could flourish. In the youth group I received my first non-King James bible, heard biblical teaching and experienced Christian community. I wish I could say that I was a spiritual virtuoso, grasping deep truths and seeing the Gospel with clarity, but...my Gospel grasp was weak at best. I remember as I struggled with sin, that Jesus said something about being forgiven 70 times 7. The way I figured it, I had 490 times to ask for forgiveness! Guilt was my constant companion.

A half-Gospel is really not good news. My teen years and early twenties were spent with a half-Gospel. I knew that Jesus died on the cross for sinners and that I was a sinner. I had walked the aisle and asked Him into my heart. I feared God. He was my judged and was constantly disappointed with me. Sin was what others could see. My life was without power, joy, purpose. I was still relating to God as a slave, trying to keep the law so that He would be happy with me.

I took this Gospel through college, to Moody and into my marriage to Laura.

Thankfully, God was still working...calling.....pursuing me.....................

My exposure to the Gospel came in the form of glimpses. It seems that I have travelled along my life as if I were on a train, As I traveled I would occasionally pass a building with a well lit room. I would catch a glimpse of the light and the contents of the room. Sometimes these glimpses would scare me, sometimes confuse me and sometimes delight me.

The story of my life is set in the South. I started my life as a Catholic infant, my father was from a Catholic family and my mother became Catholic when they were married. In my preteen years I joined a Southern Baptist church. Now I'm a Presbyterian. Jesus caught me somewhere in the middle.

I have few memories of the Catholic church. I remember that we attended St. Barnabas church in Eastlake, the church where my parents were married. My only mental image of mass was kneeling beside the pew before entering and my mom thumping me on the head when I was too loud. I don't know if this was a fomative experience. I do know that my head hurts every time I pass St. Barnabas!

I don't know why we stopped going to the Catholic church. Eighty-fifth Street Baptist was two- blocks from my house and was the next town my train moved through.

Growing up in the Baptist church, I had many glimpses of the gospel. The preacher was faithful to talk about sin (it seemed mine in particular) and being saved. I walked down the aisle to be saved sometime in my preteen years. However, my understanding of the Gospel was small. Jesus died on the cross for my sin was all I new....not necessarily all bad!

To me the weak-kneed disciple is one who realizes that all the efforts of religion to somehow make and keep God happy with us are hopeless. To be weak-kneed is to look at yourself and see that you are unable to maintain the facade of competence as a Christian, to realize that hiding your sin from those around you is exhausting and powerless. To be weak-kneed is to come to Christ with EMPTY hands and plead for grace, and then to find the overflowing love of God for you, to hear the song of His delight in you.

I had surgery last year on my right knee. I walk with a constant pain/weakness that warns me that the knee can't really bear my weight. A constant reminder that I can't provide to God the strength to be His disciple, His son.