The permanent efficacy of Grace

We do not fail because we are selfish. We fail because we are not selfish enough. We hear that only by following God will we find our heart's desire, will we become whole and be able to love and heal and live. But following God is hard, and we are stupid and lazy and inclined to follow our own will. We would rather have a self justified, broken life, full of small pleasures and half loves, because it is easy to do- easy to keep believing our small beliefs and walking in our own ways. If we really cared about ourselves, really cared about others, in fact really truly had even a speck of real love for anything at all, we would turn, and be healed.

In the summer of 2011 I fell in love with a beautiful, broken woman. Her beauty entranced me, but her brokeness was too much for me to bear. Every time I looked at her, I saw both qualities, woven into a whole, and I could not bear to see something so good, so marred. I felt one piece of what God feels for us. And I tried to solve the problem by requiring sacrifices: every time I feel hurt by her brokeness, I require some sort of recompense, some sort of deposit from her that will show me that she cares. But the problem doesn't go away, because her debt to me can never be repayed by her sacrifices, no matter how often or how large her gift. I do not know how the problem can be solved, because I cannot grasp the mystery of Christ's sacrifice in my own intellect. But I do know that it can be solved only through Christ, and only through his work in my life. The problem is this: I cannot love her. The solution, looks, simply, like this: I become able to love her.

If I fail at this, I will find out the first of life's great truths, which can be read and grasped with the mind, but can only be learned through God's refinement, through living life. The truth is this: we are more broken and wicked and foolish and lazy than we ever dared to believe, and left to our own devices, we will surely fail at our every ambition, and ruin our own lives, the earth, and the life of everything else we touch.

If, on the other hand, I succeed at this, it will be for one reason only: that I have learned the second of life's great truths, one which can also be read and intellectually grasped, but can only be learned and lived out through God's refinement. That truth is this: that every good thing we are, every success we have, every bit of love we extend towards others, is only by his saving grace. Without the action of God in our lives, and us accepting his leading and correction, we will fail, but with him in our lives, if we decide to submit to him, we will surely succeed in getting everything our heart desires.

I desire to change, but I cannot change by my own strength. Even the desire to change is from you, and even that I fight, a part of me still desiring to continue living in my petty brokeness. Break me open Lord. Change my heart. Teach me, through your life in me, to love this broken person, who is at the same moment, my enemy, and my friend. Destroy the pernicious weed that is my sinful self. Root it out and burn it up; if anything at all is left, even if it is as small as a mustard seed, I want it to be of you.