Be Be Be Be Be Be Be maybe get to do.

I feel like I should just cut and post Romans 6-8 here and be done.  So many of the things I have written about in the last year are things I have struggled with throughout my life.  Many of the principles at work are things that I have always given mental assent to.  If not for Christ I would be a monster.  By grace, I am saved, regenerated, renewed.  I know I have written this before, but it is the only thing.

There is nothing else.  I am beginning to know it.  I will probably always be beginning to know it.  Most likely I will die knowing that I have just barely scratched the surface of the depths of God’s love for me.  Knowing grace is the key.  I need to let it flow through me.  If it is not flowing through me, do I really know it?

I fail often.  When I fail I apologize.  I ask forgiveness.  Some have said that my failures are a sign that I do not know it, do not mean it, am not really trying to live it.  The key is what I do with that failure.  I can internalize it, beat myself up for days, weeks or years, or I can give it to the Lord and move ahead.  Yes I fail, yes I will probably fail again tomorrow.  I have only truly failed if I am turned away from Christ by my failure.  I must keep pressing on.  Even if sometimes all I am doing is leaning into the wind that blows against me.

It is so simple it makes me want to pound the keyboard.

Changing Gears

Recognizing that I need to stop my puny human efforts to change my wife, I have reined in my tongue. I have tried to keep my communication with her to the minimum needed to run the house and plan the immediate future. This is not too hard, since she does not generally address anything directly to me. What is hard and surprising, is what has happened spiritually in the last couple days.

Recognition that much of my behavior, good or bad, has been controlling has not made my days any easier. I find myself falling back into personal patterns of grasping and despondency. I am also being tempted like I have not been tempted in a while.

I know this is a sign that I was depending on my own efforts to sustain me. This should throw me even more completely on the Lord. I struggle. In my head I know that what is happening is for my good, that God does not put his children through the wringer for no purpose. My prayer life has been a little stunted, but this morning one of the first things I had to do was thank the Lord for loving me enough to strip these things from me.

I think my wife continues to write. I hope that she will write out her position and think it through. Writing was her idea, not mine, so it is not a hoop that I have asked her to jump through. At the same time, I wonder if the effort will cause her to throw up her hands and say, “I do not have to justify myself to anyone.” I have been careful not to say anything about her writing to avoid provoking just this kind of reaction.

These are all hard things. I have been encouraging my daughter to “Do Hard Things!” and I find myself faced by the hardest things I have ever faced. I know that you all pray, and I ask for that to continue. I really appreciate the email and phone calls. God has returned me to the point of desperation, I want to respond appropriately.