Come and Listen

I was talking to someone yesterday who is struggling with the internal battles that Paul talks about in Romans 7:

"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."

He sounds a little schizophrenic, but he's right!  I feel the same way sometimes.  We all feel that way sometimes, and this person is right there.  Oh, how I empathize!  I felt like I could really say, "Been there, done that," and mean it.  I could speak from my own life yesterday because I have definitely been there.

Interestingly enough, the Life Journal reading for today seemed so applicable to yesterday's conversation.  In Psalm 66:

"If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.  Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!"

Wow, that speaks to me.  It is so encouraging that God doesn't turn away from us.  That even when we fail, if we cry out to him, he comes and loves us anyway.

And then in 2 Corinthians, Paul is talking about how God comforts the downcast and that sometimes our sin brings deep sorrow to our hearts, but that sorrow leads us to a clearer view of who God is and what he is about.  That sorrow produces "earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done."

Paul - you are a genius!  Why are you so encouraging to me?  Oh, yeah, because you're a real person.  You don't try to hide behind some mask.  We know you struggled with sin, we know you messed up, but you still kept doggedly on toward the prize.

God, thank you for an example like Paul!  A real man, with real issues, who just plain got it.  Thank you for speaking through him into my heart.  I need that encouragement sometimes.