I don't know why I am surprised

I don't know why, but I continue to be amazed at the depth to which relationships have been affected by the fall. I know that every molecule of our being is depraved and in need of regeneration. The Calvinists have it right when they talk of the total depravity of man and the implications it has. But every once and a while I hear of something (or I perpetrate something) that makes me step back and ponder it all over again. Sometimes it gives merely gives me pause and sometimes it absolutely staggers me. It seems that imperfection piles on imperfection as snow falls on snow and buries that which should have been. The marring of this life (these lives) is all the way down and completely and utterly unredeemable save for the work of One. Truly hopeless and wanting am I so much so that the want was even produced by His Spirit.

That I am an instrument at all is a testimony to who He is. That I am useful to Him and in His hands is no small miracle in itself. Thank God for His Son's enfleshment and eventual blood shedding. It never has failed me and even if His mercy and grace were knives I would gladly take them for they are my only strength. Again, thanks be to God that are much sweeter than that for I deserve the cold, hard steel of the blade.


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