About six years ago, I was approached by a friend who was in tears. I'm always apprehensive about tears; brains go blank at the sight of them. No one, I don't care who you are, can give a good off-the-cuff answer to someone who's crying. When the stakes are low, it doesn't matter, I suppose. Bad advice about socks is something that goes away in a week. Not this time. My friend had been diagnosed with cervical cancer.

In the end, it all turned out okay, but the one thing that sticks with me is the God-question she asked.

"If I pray for healing, won't I go to Hell?"

At this point, your thoughts are probably very similar to the ones I was having at the time. But she explained, and her reasoning was thus: Since she didn't go to church or even pray on a regular basis, if she asked for healing now, it would be a hypocritical move on her part, and hypocrites go to Hell. How sad. It turned out that her father (of all people) given her this bit of "wisdom." That's a pretty swift scheme on the devil's part.

Despite our initial confusion at the question, I suspect that it's a sentiment that's kept many a person out of the church. Hugh Latimer, sixteenth-century preacherman, said this:

"Who is the most diligentest bishop and prelate in all of England that passes all the rest in doing his office? I can tell, for I know him who it is; I know him well. But now I think I see you listening and hearkening that I should name him. There is one that passeth all the other, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all of England. And will ye know who it is? I will tell you; it is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all other; he is never out of his diocese; he is never from his cure; ye shall never find him unoccupied; he is ever in his parish; he keepeth residence at all times; ye shall never find him out of the way; call for him when you will he is ever at home; the diligentest preacher in all the realm; he is ever at the plough; no lording or loitering can hinder him; he is ever applying his business, ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. And his office is tohinder religion, to maintain superstition...(1)"

Why do we allow this myth that God will only help us if we have the purest of motives? Isn't that a bit like taking a shower before your bath so as not to dirty the water? Jesus' message was, in essence, "come as you are."

Very few people, I told her, come to Christ out of the goodness of their heart. Most came to Jesus, even in the bible, because they needed something. Either they were blind, or bleeding, or demon-possessed, but everyone of them needed something first. I came to my faith because I knew that, if I didn't do something to fix my situation, my family would be loading me into a pine box shortly.

But isn't that selfish? Maybe. Or maybe it's just a matter of survival. The point of Christianity is that, though we may become converts by necessity, we become disciples out of love. God will fix us, of that I am certain. If we are any kind of a human being at all, we'll naturally reciprocate, not because we're coerced, but because no one else would do for us what Christ did.

If we wait til we're ship-shape to ask for help, we'll end up damned by our own cleanliness. In this world, we've got a billion temptations stacked against our otherwise well-behaved soul. Pride is the thing that makes us think we can conquer it without aid.

1. Hugh Latimer, Sermons, 70-71