If I Could ...

My wife said to me recently, "If you could just do everything that you preach, you'd be perfect."
Ouch! She's right.
How frustrating to know - even to tell others - how to live according to God's ways, and yet to fall so far short.

Like the Apostle Paul, I find myself in a quandary that often leaves me frustrated and feeling defeated. "For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate."

I can picture Paul sitting at his desk writing Romans 7, his chagrin growing as he pens each word. "I want to do right, but it seems so rare when I do what I know is right. Instead, I keep doing what I know to be wrong." Finally, his aggravation with his own inability reaches a fever pitch, and he writes, "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?"
Maybe at this point the great apostle walked away. He needed a break. What more could he write? He'd already bared his soul. But as he poured another cup of coffee, he began to think about his own words. Who was he depending upon anyhow? Who was it who died over his sin?
After just a few minutes, he knew he wasn't through. There was more to tell. The answer to his own question had come to him. He returned to the unfinished missive, and wrote these words: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other hand, with my flesh the law of sin."
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

I wonder if this struggle of Paul's may have come about because Mrs. Paul (who later became famous in her own right) said to him, "If you could just do everything you preach, you'd be perfect."