Free In My Depravity

Celebrating My Depravity might have been a catchier title for this reflection, but that would have been going too far. That said, I am struck today by a wonderful thought, and it is freeing.

I have made peace this morning with something I cannot change. I am depraved. Needless to say I wish I were not. But since I am, and since I cannot change that.... there is a great freedom in recognizing and acknowledging the situation for what it is.

I am free in my depravity.

Free to do what? Free to abandon the hope that tomorrow I might become perfect, and free today to fall headlong before God and seek his mercy.

Why today? Isn't this a rather fundamentally obvious thing? Did I need to reach the age of forty before realizing this? Well, there's a difference sometime between what we say with our mouths, what we know in our brains.... and the deceptions we hold in our heart. The lies we are captive to.

I've been dealing with a delicate situation over the past twenty-four hours. As I have struggled to handle the situation in a way pleasing to God, I've been burdened by my inability to do everything perfectly — and by that I include not only my actions and words but also the attitudes and motives of my heart.

As if that were possible!!!!

But that is what I was burdened by. And somewhere lurking in my heart was a hope that on another day (perhaps in just a few years?) I might be able to sail through this situation perfectly.

Right.

But! There you have it. A lie exposed. And as is so often the case, once you put it on paper it becomes pathetic in the telling. Who'd believe this lie? Oh.... just me.

So I will never arrive at perfection on this side of heaven. The burden I carried yesterday was not one I need to carry today. The burden of my sin is a burden Christ bore for me. I can put it down.

Seek perfection? Yes. Seek holiness? Yes! Expect to arrive? No. Beat myself up for lack of perfection? NO!

I am free in my depravity. Now let God work his holiness into me, and indeed his righteousness too. And let God get the glory for whatever he accomplishes in this depraved soul.