Two Roads: Choosing Softness or Hardness {Reflections}

Have you ever wondered if there's more to spiritual conviction than just feeling bad about your sins? That nagging feeling might actually be an invitation to something deeper and more transformative.

Taking you on a journey from my Christian upbringing through my time with Youth with a Mission, I share a personal revelation about what conviction truly means. It's not simply God making you feel guilty—it's a profound moment when your eyes are opened to see reality clearly, perhaps for the first time. Through my own story of compulsive lying and a sleepless night in South Africa that changed everything, I explore how conviction brings us to a critical crossroads in our spiritual journey.

When the Spirit gently reveals the truth about our actions and their consequences, we face a choice that shapes our character: will we respond with humility and repentance, allowing our hearts to soften? Or will we double down, gradually hardening ourselves against truth? The paths diverge dramatically, and the further we walk down either road, the harder it becomes to change direction. As Eugene Peterson wisely noted, faith is "a long obedience in the same direction"—and conviction moments determine which direction we're heading.

This episode invites you to reframe how you understand spiritual conviction and to embrace these moments of clarity as gifts rather than punishments. When God opens your eyes to see things as they truly are, how will you respond? Share your thoughts with us and join the conversation about navigating these pivotal moments in our spiritual lives. Your journey of faith might transform when you begin to see conviction as an invitation to growth rather than a spiritual guilt trip.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
What is up everybody?
Hey, my name is Ryan andwelcome to episode number 92.
92, here we go.
So I'm excited to be here, I'mglad you're here, and when I was
growing up, I grew up in aChristian home, went to an
organization called YWAM orYouth with a Mission, and then,
of course now I work at a churchand I've been a part of Young
Life, so I've got this eclectickind of religious Christian

(00:38):
background, which I'm sothankful for.
But one of the things that oneof the pieces of language that
was used a lot from when I waslittle to older, now even was
this idea of the conviction ofGod or the conviction of the
Holy Spirit that when you wanderoff the path, when we engage in
sin, that God would bring hisconviction.
And what they mean by that isoftentimes when we express it.

(01:00):
I think for a lot of us itmeans like, oh, I was, suddenly
I felt bad about my sin, and so,like when the Spirit shows up
and you're living in sin orwhatever, there is like this
conviction from God or from theHoly Spirit and you suddenly
feel bad about what you weredoing, and then you repent and
fair enough.
But I think we might be missinga step in there.
So maybe this will help, maybenot, but I hope it does help.

(01:20):
But I don't think conviction isnecessarily just the action of
God coming to make you feel badabout your sin.
I think that feeling bad aboutyour sin is good, that's fine,
but I think it misses the step.
And the step, I think reallywhere the conviction is is.
I think conviction is simplyabout seeing things accurately,

(01:41):
and so I think it does take thespirit to show up when we're
engaging in certain kinds ofbehavior.
And obviously sin is more thanjust behavior, but it manifests
as like behaviors.
So sin, capital S sin, is thisbigger thing, this cancerous
sort of you know, I don't knowself-love run amok that has
infected the whole culture andsociety.
But I really mean in more interms like maybe just in your
own life, this sort of small Ssin, the things that you do,

(02:04):
like a manifestation of thebigger S sin.
And anyway, I think that weengage in these behaviors or
thought patterns or ways ofbeing in the world that are
destructive and they don't bringlife, and it's sin.
And I think when God shows upand it's not like God shows up,
but you know what I mean.
Like that God kind of bringsconviction.
What he's doing, what God isdoing, what the Spirit is doing,

(02:27):
is just opening our eyes tolike how things really are
working and softening our heartswhere they've grown hardened
and opening our ears wherethey've grown deaf, and we
suddenly see all kinds of thingswe've never seen before.
It's like the way you werebehaving which maybe you weren't
aware of or didn't see, or inits fullness, like suddenly you
now see it and it's like rightin front of you.

(02:48):
It can be quite dramatic andthat might cause us to feel like
, ooh, not great.
So when I was younger I used tolie all the time, like all the
time, and I grew up.
It was a survival thing for me.
I would lie to get out oftrouble, stay out of trouble.
Then it became just a patternfor me.
I would lie to get out oftrouble, stay out of trouble.
That became just a pattern, ahabit, because that's what
happens.
You sort of.

(03:09):
You know my buddy always saysat first you choose sin and then
later sin kind of chooses you.
That's deep, you know.
And so I just became this likeliar all the time and I went to
YWAM Youth with a Mission andlong story short.
But I was there.
I was actually.
I had flown to South Africawith about 20 other people and
there I was, there doingministry, like I was a Christian
, doing ministry.
But this old habit of lying, itdid not go away.

(03:31):
It died hard.
And I got caught in this lieand it was like dramatic, and I,
like I did what I was used todoing, which I just doubled,
tripled down on the fact that Iwas no, I'm not, I'm not lying.
And I had been called out by aleader for lying and he knew I'd
lied.
But I did not relent and I just, over and over again, just
doubled down.

(03:53):
And that night I went to bedbecause the leader's like, hey,
let's just talk about it in themorning and we'll just all go to
bed and just think about it andregather in the morning.
And I was like I went to bedand I'm like I'm not going.
I prayed, I said God, if youwant me to confess this lie,

(04:15):
then have me not sleep welltonight, which was a silly
prayer.
God would be like no, no,you're fine, dude, it's okay to
lie.
Just sleep well, bud.
No, I did not sleep well allnight it was this realization of
how much, as I was lying therein bed, I had this awakening,
like this revelation, like ofhow much my lies had hurt people

(04:36):
, how it broke trust, how peopledidn't like me in some ways and
pockets because of how I liedand I, all of a sudden, I saw
everything clearly and I justfelt broken.
I just began to cry.
Actually, I went back that nextmorning to confess it to my
leader.
I totally lied and as Iconfessed it, I just broke.
I was like I just startedweeping and so, yeah, like I

(04:58):
definitely didn't feel goodabout it and the conviction of
the Holy Spirit led to mefeeling bad about my sin.
But the step in between therewas like this, I had this the
Spirit kind of came and verygently opened my eyes to how
much pain I'd caused and thetrust I'd broken and like the
kind of person I was becomingand like I don't want to be that
kind of person.
And it was almost like therewas like this crossroads Cause,

(05:19):
I think, the conviction, when,when God opens our eyes, it's
almost like you have these twochoices, like you have this,
you're at a crossroads, and Godsays, hey, now that you see this
.
Now that I've shown it to you,you can't unsee it, but you can
respond in two ways.
One you can repent and you canmake yourself humble and low and
soft and go and apologize andmake things right and figure it

(05:43):
out, and I'll help you.
And if you do that, you'llbecome softer in my hands, your
heart will become renewed, youreyes will be open even more,
your ears will become even moreable to hear me clearly, and
you'll kind of live in tune withme as I've created the world,
and live in sort of this youknow way of being in the world
that I've designed you to live,and it's great, that's life.

(06:05):
Do that, but also you can go theother way, ryan, like you can
go the other way and hide it andkeep doubling or tripling down
on it and not become open andsoft and I'm like no, I'm not
going to repent and I'm going tokeep choosing my own selfish
ways.
And when you do that, though,ryan, your heart will become a
little bit harder and your earsa little bit deafer to my voice

(06:26):
and your eyes less able to seethings as they really are, and
the conviction of the HolySpirit becomes sort of harder to
, kind of, for you to receive it, because you just keep going
and then it's like these twopathways and you can pick either
way.
But repent, choose life.
Don't go the other way andbecome hardened, because now
that you're walking down thatpath imagine walking on those

(06:47):
divergent pathways and fastforward 15, 20, 30 years Now
you're really far down thatpathway and it becomes even
harder to get off that path andgo a different direction.
So when the conviction of theHoly Spirit comes, this idea of
you opening your eyes a bit moreand seeing things yourself,
maybe as though in a mirror,clearly, or your own behavior
and the destruction it brings,or the relationships it hurts,

(07:10):
you know, may you become soft inGod's hand and may you soften
your heart towards him.
May you choose to repent andapologize and be humbled and go
that road and do that over andover and, over and over again.
This is what obedience lookslike.
It's what faith looks like.
Eugene Peterson calls faith along obedience in the same

(07:31):
direction.
Don't go the other way andclose your eyes and deaden your
ears and keep your hard heart,because that's the way of
destruction and it's just theway of non-life.
So today, may you experiencethe conviction of the Holy
Spirit, this idea of God openingyour eyes a bit more, and may
you respond in a way that bringslife All right, peace.

(07:52):
Love you guys.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you
share it with some friends.
And don't forget, you arealways welcome to join us in
person at Central in Elk Riverat 8.30, which is our liturgical
gathering, or at 10 o'clock,our modern gathering.
Or you can check us out onlineat clcelkriverorg Peace.