What Could Be & What Is

I've been thinking a lot lately about how selfish I am [thanks a great deal in part to a hard, but loving conversation with a dear lady in my life this last week]. And I've been thinking about how that's not what I want to be, but it feels so much like who I am. It feels like a part of me, something that's ingrained deep down. It doesn't feel like something I can just turn off, or decide one day to not be.

And I think we all have that, to some extent, something that feels like it's who we are, like it defines us, although it's the last thing we want to be. We grow used to it and so we don't notice it for awhile. We live in it and it's comfy. But then we're confronted with it. Whether it be in a conversation, an interaction, a nudge from the Holy Spirit, or just some good ol' self-reflection.

It comes like a train. It takes our breath away how sinful we are. How utterly unlike Jesus. We realize maybe we don't have things together as much as we had hoped. We cry. We get mad, maybe even defensive. We are disappointed in ourselves. We feel hopeless. But then we grow used to it again. We allow that thing that feels so much like who we are to define us again, to be comfortable.

But how I pray that I don't grow used to it this time. How I pray that I wage war on this sin that encompasses my relationships, my thoughts, and at times, it feels like my very being.

How inadequate and underprepared I feel to be marrying a man that is so very unselfish, so serving, so kind. But how very loving of God that he paired us together for the rest of our lives so that I can learn. So that I can be hit with the train that is my selfishness time and time again and not grow used to it and let it be. So that I can rip it from my life and then rip it again the next week when I see it start to inch in again.

And I know that the truth is that my selfishness, my sin—it does not define me. I know that Jesus defines me. He says I am a saint, now that I am in Him. And His voice should be the loudest when it comes to who I am. But it doesn't make the reality of my sin any less painful, any less hard.

I really am convinced that one of the most difficult things in a Christian's life is seeing what they could be and then facing their current reality. Knowing the life that Jesus calls them to live and then seeing how absolutely short they fall of that. The great chasm between what could be and what is. But it's a really good thing that, as C.S. Lewis says, "The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” God, please make me good. 

//via