“It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.”
~Alfred Adler.
Our own hypocrisy smacks us in the face and we’re apt at feeling guilty and ashamed because of it. Yet, it’s the acknowledged state of all humanity. We often hate ourselves for what we do, and for what we are, when we don’t live up to what we believe in. This is fundamentally why we need God.
Do we find it difficult to comprehend that a person who speaks out vehemently against pornography may actually have problems with their own sexuality and self control to those very same ends? The examples are endless. This, of course, is not saying that every advocate of a good thing struggles with that very same thing; most indeed will not.
We all, however, struggle in some regard to maintain our own lofty standards, living to our innermost values.
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I do what I don’t want to do,
And I hate what it makes me,
Wanting to make old into new,
Against the me I’m set to be.
Warrant and concern every last one,
Sins and struggles - everyone’s aghast,
Despite the will to establish it done,
Virtue achieved at last.
But that’s not the lot for each,
This our hearts will know,
For beyond trying we’re cursed to teach,
And this beyond to grow.
Short of direst contemplation,
Each we care to address,
Guilt-racked insanity scarce not mention,
Grace’s made triumph out of mess.
It would be simple to say that everyone battles for control over their flesh. This merely propounds the abundantly generous impact of God’s grace over our lives, that God knows us—how rotten to the core we are at times—and still he accepts us.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.
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