One of my biggest regrets during my high school tenure and one of the few amends I have left and would like to make if God ever gives me the opportunity came on a trip to the FFA National Convention. I didn't actually commit the crime, but I was at least complicit and guilty by association. I feel more like a cowardly accomplice than a witness. I have always been ashamed of the moment I let someone else suffer because of my desire to be accepted. I knew when I decided to go on the trip that I would be the outsider of the trip, but it could still be fun, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with things to do away from the guys from my school. But then one other guy, more rejected than I was, signed up. This poor boy was country. Everything about him should have made him just another good old boy high school ag student who fit in with that crowd. But he didn't. He didn't have enough money. He didn't have the social skills. He was broke and awkward, and worse, he looked and acted both.
We were on the trip with one chaperone. Nine high school boys and one teacher is recipe for disaster. It was also a recipe for a tough trip for the oddest man out who would end up sharing a hotel room with the chaperone while the rest of us eight split up between two rooms chaperone free. While I am sure my mother would have felt better had I spent the week with the teacher, I was grateful not to. I prided myself on being a person who accepted the unaccepted, who befriended the friendless and ran with the outcasts, but not that week. Several states from home and not wanting to be kicked out of the group who accepted me as the lesser of the two undesirables, I stood on the edges of the group and silently watched this fellow misfit be bullied and belittled during the times when the group was forced to include him at all. The rest of the time we stayed as far from him and the chaperone as possible. It was horrible. I knew how he felt. We could have made friends, bonded, been outcasts together if I'd chosen him over the group. But I chose the company of people I didn't particularly like, who didn't like me, instead.
This had me feeling shame the whole trip, which of course I tried to push away with distraction, pleasure and chemicals, but one moment it became far worse. Mr. Mills, the chaperone, somehow coerced the student who had brought his boom box into letting Outcast hold it and play one of the cassettes while we rode in the van on the way home. The player ate the tape and the deck refused to open. The owner of the box convinced Outcast that he was responsible and that the boom box would have to be replaced. This young man accepted responsibility for damaging the box and agreed to compensate the owner. Even though he'd only eaten that cheapest meals possible each day because he didn't have enough to bring spending money, he bought the boom box owner a Swatch watch to cover the cost of replacing the box. He went hungry the rest of the trip because he was out of money afterward.
But I knew the boom box was fine. I also knew that I could get the deck open and get the tape out. I could probably fix the tape, but the player was fine. I stepped up right before the Swatch was purchased to tell the boom box owner, but I told him off to the side where no one could hear. I should have told Outcast or everyone. But I stood by and let this poor kid get conned and ripped off and go hungry. Then, as if that wasn't evil enough, when we got back in the van and resumed the trip home, I fixed the player. It took about two minutes. I should have at least waited until the trip was over so that perhaps Outcast wouldn't have known he'd been taken advantage of. But no, when the owner asked me to fix it, I did, both the tape and the player, and Owner laughed as we continued on playing the very tape that had been eaten on the player that supposedly had been damaged and he deserved compensation for. I still remember the look in Outcast's eyes as he realized what had happened; the hurt and anguish made me want to crawl in a hole. I had caused someone else to feel what made me want to die. I still hate it happened.
I should have told him he wasn't responsible and that even if he had been that there wasn't really any damage. I should have told him he owed nothing. That paying for a Swatch watch wasn't going to make him accepted and that it wasn't necessary. He was hurt and miserable and hungry, bereft of resources, because he tried to pay a debt that was illegitimate. And we are often in the same position. No, I haven't jumped tracks.
As children of God, we are the outcasts of the world and enemies of the Enemy of God. He hates and despises us. But for some reason, there is still a part in most, if not all of us, that wants to be comfortable in and accepted by the world and by God. We want to fit in both places. So when we are told that we belong with the world and not with God because of our past, we bite and swallow the lie hook, line and sinker. We try to make up for what we've done, we try to earn God's acceptance and approval through good works and living right We try to pay our debts. But here's the thing. God already forgave and accepted us. Our debts are more than we could ever pay if we had to, because we were spiritually and morally bankrupt. Jesus paid our debt, and therefore there is nothing to repay. We are making ourselves miserable trying to pay a bill that has already been paid, and the enemy is laughing at us as he watches us try to earn what we already have, the love and acceptance and forgiveness of God.
No matter how we might feel or what we have been or done in the past, we are not outcasts to God. If we have accepted the gift of grace and the justification of Jesus for us, we are God's children, not rejected but accepted. We do not have to listen to the lies of an enemy who hates us. The debt has been paid. If we have opportunity to accept our part and provide compensation to the people we have legitimately harmed we should, to make it right with them, to show them that the change we declare is true and to show the restorative love of God in action. But don't buy into the lie that our actions determine our forgiveness and acceptance from God. He loves you and me. He died in our place. He paid every eternal debt of sin we have or will ever owe. All He asks of us in return is surrender and for us to accept that He is enough. We need to stop trying to pay on debts that are illegitimate because they have already been paid.
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