IN THE BATHROOM, I crouched on the floor with my arms wrapped around my knees, mind frenzied with irrational fears, emotions surging in response.

As soon as it crossed my lips, the question sounded dumb. “But we still have to keep the Ten Commandments, don’t we?”

You’re trapped. You’ve tried everything to escape. Prayer, counsel, drugs, discipline, confession, sorrow, and repentance. But with every effort, every promise to do better, the clamp of sin’s hold on you grows tighter.

When I was 27 years old, I went to Pakistan to plant churches among Muslim people in southwest Punjab. No one told me it was the most difficult posting our mission offered.