As those boys became men, I wonder how many of them walked their pilgrimage with a limp, like I did. How many of them felt the frustration of remaining sin, knew defeat just as often as victory, and stuffed any honest engagement with sin deep down into their psyche? To succeed in the Christian life, I thought I could only acknowledge the sin I left behind, not the sin that continued to ensnare me. What wanna-be Power Team member could walk with a limp?

In the evangelical 1980s, regular appearances of “The Power Team” at local megachurches were great opportunities for desperate youth pastors to connect with bored young men. In the name of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit, team members would take turns performing feats of strength. It was all designed to remind the boys especially that being a Christian wasn’t for wimps, that you could be “cool” and a Christian, too.

Honestly, I doubt they were very successful at either aim. Instead, events like this merely cemented in my own young mind, and in the minds of my peers, the already carefully crafted message we heard in our churches: Good Christians were always victorious. Victorious over embarrassing sins, victorious over cultural temptations, victorious over telephone books! God help you, however, if you weren’t victorious—if you struggled, if you failed, if all your feats of strength ended in an embarrassing whimper for help.

As those boys became men, I wonder how many of them walked their pilgrimage with a limp, like I did. How many of them felt the frustration of remaining sin, knew defeat just as often as victory, and stuffed any honest engagement with sin deep down into their psyche? To succeed in the Christian life, I thought I could only acknowledge the sin I left behind, not the sin that continued to ensnare me. What wanna-be Power Team member could walk with a limp?

But limp we did and limp we do. Each one of us continues not just to fight against remaining sin, but to be marked by those battles we have fought and lost against sin. Since that’s the reality in which each of us lives, why do we pretend it is otherwise? We’re not fooling anyone, and we’re not helping anyone come to terms with the profound hope and confidence that comes—even for those who must live with the mark of their sin for the rest of their lives.

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