Trap doors. The universe is full of them. C.S.Lewis understood that when he wrote a little children’s story about a simple, homely wardrobe in an abandoned upstairs room that became the entryway to another world. This was no mere literary device on his part, to get Lucy from England to Narnia; there is something deep and spiritual afoot.

Ted Bundy, hours before they executed him in Florida, told James Dobson about the trap door that got him: pornography. He was just a kid of 12, and he and his buddies found a magazine in the alley in his neighborhood. Why Satan’s door will suck in one and not another is a mystery. But he has lots of different trap doors.

There are the notorious ones — internet porn, the bottle, the slots casino, astrology. But there are unlikely ones too — prescription pain medicine, the mall, love of horses, a love of art collecting. Makes no difference to Satan. “Soft underfoot” is as good as suicide.

I have known of men who fell through trap doors never to be heard of again. But by God’s grace, I have known of men who fell through trap doors, and after getting beat up by Satan for years, were graciously rescued by God.

God provided other trap doors, so that they stumbled into grace unawares. Some of those grace doors were unlikely too. Like prison. Which Satan no doubt meant as a trap for his kingdom, but which God co-opted for his own kingdom. Praise His unsearchable wisdom and mercy!

Chuck Colson (Richard Nixon’s “hatchet man”). David Berkowitz (late 70s New York City serial killer “Son of Sam”).

God saves the chiefs of sinners and makes them glorious — in order that grace may be shown to be utterly gracious. That’s how Paul (“Saul”) explained his own conversion (1 Timothy 1:12-16).

We have a hint that Paul also dropped out of the newspapers about that time: “We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known” (2 Corinthians 6:8,9). Oh, sure, there was a certain notoriety, and the persecutions. But no respectable Rabbinical school would touch him after he “got religion” and became a gentle, godly man.

One thousand planes a day landing safely in Atlanta is not “news,” I suppose. The media is by nature a rapacious and insensible beast, gobbling sensations at the speed of a swarm of locusts, not looking behind.

No one cares that David Berkowitz has labored joyfully for many years in a special ministry among emotionally troubled fellow inmates about a hundred miles north of New York City, but I was happy all day today just learning about it, and reading his 2002 testimony on Larry King.

About half my personal mail comes from prison inmates these days (thanks mostly to WORLD magazine, and my habit of answering all correspondence). And never have I been so blessed and encouraged.

And as for what’s considered newsworthy, it’s like C.S.Lewis said in his book about heaven, The Great Divorce: “Fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.”

The concept of “New Years Resolutions” is problematic for Christians. It smacks of self-effort, which is antithetical to the idea of “Jesus” (the Hebrew version “Yeshua” meaning “God saves” or “Yahweh is salvation”).

We know we messed up in 2007 but we’re afraid that any exertion to do better in 2008 will bring us under condemnation. God saves, after all. Yahweh is salvation. Woe to him who tries to save himself by any self-improvement. Last year you made a resolution to stop trusting yourself for your salvation and to start trusting God.

And then you noticed your grave error: “Oops! I made a resolution to trust in Christ. There’s that word “I” again, and “resolution.”

So this year you will not even make a resolution to stop trusting yourself and to start trusting Christ. Christ will have to produce the trusting in you. No hurry about it. You’ll just hang around and wait till He pleases to do it.

This is all a pretty recipe for making no progress in 2008, and for putting the whole thing out of your mind by January 5^th.

Or, you can stop this nonsense right now and strive with all your heart and soul and mind and strength to obey and to please the Lord this coming year — with the grace that he provides.

Yesterday my family had lunch with two other families, one with small children like our own, the other a couple whose children are grown. It was one of those Sunday lunches (we called them “dinners” where I grew up) that reminds me of how I am part of a community and a communion, and that this is a good thing, in spite of my introversion. After we cleared the table, the children ran off to play, the women retired to the den, and we men sat at the table.

Our conversation turned to raising children. I told them that I feel weighted by my past. I am having to learn what being a good father means in the midst of fathering. It’s like learning to drive at 60 miles an hour.

It’s my great fear that my inadequacies as a father will lead me to scar my children. I worry that I won’t show them how fully I love them, or that I will fail to direct their eyes to heaven. “I’ve got to get this right,” I told the men at that table.

“Or,” the oldest man there said gently, “you can remember what your Bible says.”

“Grace,” I said, sheepishly. He nodded. We all mess up, I know, and it’s certainly not our righteousness that guides our children to Christ. I suppose I look at my own life and see the seeds — and often the fruit — of terrible mistakes, and I worry that I will fail my children, that I won’t have the strength and character to guide them. It is Christ who saves them, yes, but we parents can do so much harm with our words and actions and failures to act. Some nights I go to bed thinking I held my own as a father that day; others I lay my head on my pillow, ashamed, and consider how much harm I need to undo when the sun rises again.

I’ve thought about this as I grieve for my friend Jennifer, who is dying of cancer. She has two daughters, a teenager and a little girl. She worries about whether the youngest, especially, will remember her. She worries over what it will mean for her soon to be absent from their lives. This is the twin to my fear of failing as a father, that I will die while they are young, while they still need me. I grieve because Jen is dying, and I grieve because she is living out that deep fear of a parent.

It occurs to me, though, that the actions of parents have a way of imprinting themselves on a child’s heart. Just as we can carry scars from childhood years that are significantly lost to our memories, Jen’s children will retain her love, and the sense of wholeness that comes with being unconditionally accepted by a parent, even as their childhood memories fade. She is leaving them, yes, but in a sense she is inseparable from them.

It is a miraculous thing, the power of a parent’s love to fill up a child, so that he senses a shadow of his heavenly father’s love. I want to believe that even if I mess things up, my children will still have my love imprinted on them, so that they sense, behind my imperfect love, the perfect love of God. I want to believe that, when I get things wrong as a father, God will still redeem my effort. I need for imperfect to be good enough, because it’s all I have. I suppose it’s all any of us have, isn’t it?