Perhaps I should also tell you about a few of my misdemeanors that the New Testament only hints at. O Lord, let my motto be: The whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

No.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

Okay, I shall, but only because confession is good for the soul. I need to get these things off my chest, once and for all.

Paul glances at the worst of it in the book of 2 Corinthians when he complains that God allowed me to "buffet" him, thereby to keep his pride in check, lest his ego should become "exalted above measure" (2 Cor. 12:7).

It's true. I buffeted Saint Paul's ego. Nor am I the only fallen archangel who did it. We ganged up on him. Belial, Beelzebub, and I used to get that arrogant apostle so lost and twisted around in the big cities that he didn't know up from down, and he still wouldn't ask anyone for directions. Or we'd send a common housefly into his mouth, as he preached the gospel; or else we'd afflict him with intestinal gas and cause him to let blast with an enormous fart while also prompting such funny pneumatological slips of the tongue as "this is my wind, which was broken for you" (1 Tim. 5:23-24; Philemon1:20, KJV); or we'd give him an embarrassing vision of what some handsome, ruddy-cheeked youth in the front pew might look like, totally naked (Mark 14:51-52). Or we'd sink the boat in which he was sailing – we pulled one that three times! After his third saltwater baptism by immersion, Paul spent a whole day and night in the Mediterranean, finally washing up on a Malta beach looking like a drowned pussycat and smelling like a dead fish (2 Cor. 11:23-25). Ah, those were the days!

Eventually, our little pinches and pokes and buffetings made Saint Paul a nervous wreck. The least little noise would make him jump –

In my frequent journeys, afraid of the water, afraid of robbers, afraid of my own countrymen, afraid of the heathen, afraid in the city, afraid in the wilderness, afraid at sea, afraid of false brothers, tired, full of aches, hungry and thirsty, frequently missing dinner, often cold and naked, and suffering other obvious indignities that happened to me almost daily... (2 Cor. 11:26-28).

– but here's what's so great about it: the Lord put us up to it! Ha-ha-ha!

Nothing annoys your heavenly Father like an exalted ego. Show me a Christian ego inflated above measure – I don't care if it is a holy apostle's ego – and I'll show you a golden opportunity for the Lord and me to play a relaxing game of spiritual badminton.

– L.