490 times and still counting

Well, the world, the flesh, and the devil have been whupped. But the losers keep on fighting, and I've taken a trouncing. I wish it were all different, deep down inside, the part of me that chooses fantasy over reality. I secretly harbor the belief that I'd rather be a martyr than a race-finisher. I'd rather be a Stephen than a Paul. I'd rather be a Jim Elliot than a David Livingston. I'd rather go out in a blaze of glory than stay here as a small light in a very dark world. Perhaps a literal cross is easier to bear than a figurative one, because you have to carry the figurative one more than a few hours. A quick death would spare me a life of death to self. The honor of heroic martyrdom looks far more appealing than the humiliation of the sin that so easily besets us.

What I want is a quick way out. I used to look for it in campfire services and long invitations. Walk the aise, throw the stick in the fire, and the struggle's over. But alas, life has a way of smacking you in the face with cold hard reality. One finds out soon enough that pride and hypocrisy and lust and hatred and bitter sarcasm and deceit and indolence don't get burned away with the stick you threw in the campfire. Aisle-walkers and leaders and sinners and mentors are all falling with me. There is no quick and easy way to escape the melee.

My only hope is that I can run back to the prodigal's Father, and again, and again. The God who made me out of dirt to live a life of praise has born my shame after I jumped right back into the miry clay. He makes all things new. I make all things dirty. But He sees me through His Son, pure and clean and holy--all the things my heart isn't.

So praise the God who saves. Praise the God who pardons repeat offenders. Praise the God who conquered the enemy and then forgives us when the enemy still conquers us.