His angry eyes burned at his brother’s face. It had been a long, arduous day of tempers flaring and fists flying.
I pulled the offender aside and tried to calm his flaming outrage.
“Baby, why are you like this today?” I asked, hoping to awaken his rational mind so it could regulate his emotions more clearly.
He stared at me, helpless, and said, “I can’t help it. I was born this way.”
My heart ached for him, for humanity. Oh, sweet boy. We were all born this way.
We were all born into sin, into anger and hatred, jealousy and fear, into a state of never-enough-goodness to overcome the unfairness of life.
The load of sin is made more burdensome when we heap on the “coulda”, “shoulda”, and “woulda”regrets of our past.
There is only one way to rid ourselves of this heavy load that is laden on us at birth. We must die.
Grace is empowering that way. Grace says that what we chose yesterday is not nearly as important as what God can make of us today.
The gospel makes it possible to look our inadequacy and failure in the face and admit to all of it. Humility is not hard when hope fills our hearts.
Hope that we are more in Christ than we were on our own. It is not just that we can’t bear the weight of sin. It is that we weren’t designed to carry it all our days.
On our own, we are like a glass pillar trying to hold up a giant skyscraper. We are bound to break and shatter.
My sweet boy is right, we can’t help that we were born this way. But Christ can give us new life. We have only to lean into Him, be made whole and strong, and live the life He has lavished on us.
Yummy…well done