Physician…heal thyself?

I’ve been haunted this last week with the question of my own ability to change those things that I hate about my own life.

I have looked into the lives of a number of struggling people, and I see the repetition of sin, bad choices, the need for personal gratification, the lack of real commitment to make real change, the exchange of resolve with rhetoric, and the morphine of starting over again and again and again. I was complaining to God about the lack of true grit in the people.

His response to me was typical. He immediately brought to my attention three pits of destruction in my life. He asked what I had done to resolve these three areas of sin, lack of discipline, bad choices, and lack of commitment. He said that I’ve talked about….

I have been reading Flannery O’Conner’s The Violent Bear It Away, and in the book, Tarwater is unable to escape the driving downfalls in his life. He fights with all that is in him to overcome his condition, but he is unable to alter the life that he lives. It is a story of shocking failure. It is a story that makes us feel smaller. Every step along the way, Tarwater regrets his condition and his actions…just like I do…

Regret is not repentance.