Even though I was not a huge fan of her style of music, I always recognized that Whitney Houston was very talented in the genre that she performed in. The death of any person is sad, but I think the circumstances surrounding her life and death make her death even more tragic.
What I am having a hard time understanding is the line of Christians that are coming out to question Houston’s faith. The argument is that her inability to live a “clean” life proves that she never really believed, or maybe even that God doesn’t exist.
So what does it take to prove that you really believe? I think John J. Thompson said it best in an editorial of True Tunes magazine years and years ago: “I cannot prove that anyone is a believer.” Outward signs can be faked. Inward changes can sometimes take years and even decades before they change our outward actions.
I first became a Christian my senior year in high school. It was at least two years after that before I started seeing changes in the way I acted. There was a lot changing on the inside, but the outward shell was still locked. I am sure many people questioned whether I was really a believer at that point. In fact, I know they did, and their judgment proved to be wrong.
And I never had a drug or alcohol problem. Throw that in the mix? Who knows how many decades it would have been before I started looking like a Christian?
Many people that claim to be believers spoke at Houston’s funeral, and they all testified that she “loved the Lord.” Like all of us, she made mistakes and fell into sin. So where is the line that says “on this side, your sin is small enough for us to still count you as a believer; on that side, your sin is just too big and it means that you don’t really believe”?
That is the crux of the issue – our sin does not change our belief. It is our belief that changes our sin… but there is nothing that says it has to be instantaneous, or long and drawn out for that matter. It is often that we all have both going on in our lives. There are things that we change quickly and things we struggle with for years and even decades.
So, I will choose to err on the side of grace and believe that no matter how flawed Houston was, she was a believer. If you want to err on the side of law and condemnation, that is your choice.
