Thursday, August 27, 2009

Today, I feel sick.

Today, I feel sick-
not the kind of sickness that attacks our physical bodies.
A far worse kind.
Today, I feel sick in my soul.
In my spirit.
To borrow some lyrics from one of my favorite bands of all time,
"I struggle with forward motion."
To borrow some words from Paul in the New Testament,
"The trouble is with me...for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate...I want to do what is good, but I don't. I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway."
[Romans 7: 14-19. New Living Translation]
Those who have much background or experience at all with a church or Christianity have probably heard this Scripture quoted many times.
It's nothing new.
It's nothing I haven't heard at least a hundred times growing up in a church.
Despite this Scripture's popularity, there is something so poignant about it, isn't there?
Paul hit the nail right on the head. I love how he boldly states,
"The trouble is with me..."
Paul, the same man who was once Saul- a killer of Christians and persecutor of the early Church who was transformed by the power of Jesus into a walking, living, breathing testimony of God's redemption, states somewhat emphatically,
the problem is me!
The problem is me.
After all, the problem never was with God, was it?
The problem always has been me.
How painful to type.
More painful still, the reality and the Truth that this sin that lives within me and the inadequacies that stare me so boldly in the face
are the same iniquities that nailed Him to a tree.
Heart-wrenching.
There are countless Scriptures I find comfort in that remind me that God is not finished with me yet. He does not leave me nor forsake me.
He casts my sin as far as the east is from the west and chooses to remember it no more.
His mercies are new every morning.
It was not I who loved Him first or chose Him, but He loved me first and He chose me-not because of my righteousness, because I had none.
I am suppose to forget about the past and look forward to what is ahead.
. . .
But for these brief moments, it is a time to mourn my sin.
and to celebrate His death-
for by His death I get to crucify all my insufficiencies.

1 comment:

Sarah Satt said...

Girl. I feel ya. That forward motion isn't as easy as it sounds. I love you. Just got into Nairobi an hour ago... I wish SO BAD that you were here.