Hope from the depths.

Another day gone by, another failure. A failed attempt at battling sin, with not a lot of thought to positive action. Pretty standard fair for my life. It never ceases to amaze me how delusional I once was, thinking that me and God would somehow work things out at some point. Every day without relent I come face to face with the old me. The old me that wants to rip apart everything God has built in my life. The me that waits for the new man that God has made me to relax for a minute, to get complacent and lazy so he can bust out and try and drag me back into the darkness of my past. Oh he gets weaker but I'm positive he'll never go away until I see the Lord. I hate that guy. I pray to God that I'd hate him more. The only thing that keeps me going is the "It is finished" yelled from the broken dying man on a cross some two thousand plus years ago. It is finished - the totality of that sacrifice at Golgotha ensures the death of the old me. The guarantee of my salvation and the assurance of my hope comes from the reality of the risen Christ, and the Spirit within me that cries from the depths of day to day "Abba, Father". I am no longer a slave, but a son and an heir with the one that paid for every stupid rebellious thing I've done and do day in and day out. Why? Not for anything in me thats for sure. I haven't got a doubt that I'm a step away from damnation. The only thing that keeps me from taking that step is the gracious will of God that sovereignly keeps me in his hands.

It boggles me to imagine how people go through their day thinking that they'll be good enough that God won't condemn them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging - I was there. But it's an insane position to take. Even now when I look at my changed life I still see so much of it worthy of condemnation and infinite punishment. People must just live better lives than I do day to day to think that they'll somehow talk God into letting them off the hook on that last day. Or they're deluded into thinking that some prayer they prayed in the past is their get out of hell free card. The devil is so sneaky. I heard it said once that if Satan had his way everyone would live morally upright lives for the most part, the liquor and porn stores would close down and the American dream would be an easy reality (thats not the quote but a hack paraphrase). That's the exact kind of world where people get lulled into thinking that they're gonna be alright. That God's gonna be maybe mildly disappointed they didn't do more good stuff, but certainly not so mad as to throw them into eternal hellfire. Sometimes I think the reason that God lets so much evil and madness go on is so that we get a glimpse into what we really are. The saddest thing is that we're so blind we don't see it. In our natural state we see evil and either blame God for it or use it as an argument against God. "How could God let that child be murdered?" We don't really think that if there is no holy God that dictates what's right and what's wrong then child murder isn't really evil, it's just an unfortunate effect of natural selection. Someone with better genes weeding out someone weaker's offspring. Maybe not so unfortunate: wouldn't want someone who can't defend their own family from predators to reproduce after all. It's a bleak, scary world-view when taken to its logical ends.

Having said all that, I'm clinging to Christ. Only because God keeps me clinging to Christ. I have a bad, rotten, sinful day and at the end of it when I feel like giving up I can get on my knees before my heavenly Father and with the Psalmist say:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. (Psalm 130:1-8 ESV)

I wait and watch. In my failures which invariably outweigh my triumphs I have hope. More than watchmen for the morning I watch for Christ coming in his glory. Oh for that day...