Wednesday, June 24, 2009

A Fistfight with God

It's been a few years, but there was a point in my life when I challenged God to a fistfight. Can you imagine? What gall. What pride. What arrogance. But I was so angry at Him (for reasons I won't disclose here) that I challenged Him. "Show me your face," I said, "and I'll punch you in the nose." Well, I'm over it now. God, in His gracious and merciful way chose not to pummel me with something as simple as a breath, but instead chose to humble me. Heal me. Love me. What an amazing God. And I have found that my struggles now aren't so much with Him, as with myself. Oddly enough, I opened my Bible this morning and found a section of scripture from Romans that I can really relate to. Thought I'd share it.
For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man,
But I see another law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind,
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin
which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am!
Who will deliver me from this body of death?
-Romans 7:22-24 (NKJV)
I think Paul and I must've had a lot in common. I wrestle daily with myself. But I take some solace in the very next verse he wrote:
I thank God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God
but with the flesh the law of sin.
I find comfort in knowing that, even though he struggled with sin, Paul's mind was on God. Paul's mind was on the one who conquered sin. And I pray that I'm able to keep my mind there too.