The Way it Is...

 "Good is good, and Bad is bad".. Sheryl Crow.

"He who can hear - hear!"  Jesus.

There really is only one trouble in this life that entirely throws everything into total meltdown and leaves us uncoupled from what is genuinely good. It isn't just that we do things that harm ourselves and others - it's why we do this... the dreadful side of each of us that causes us to love the bad and often despise the good.

We continually prefer to avoid the issue - we're not that bad (as if a quick comparison will somehow shoo the trouble away), but in those moments when life actually allows us to be totally exposed to ourselves, then the unavoidable truth detonates with all the power of a perfect storm.

We are sin creatures because that is the master of our desires, and thereby our pursuits. Pride, Greed, Envy, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth and Anger aren't just useful motives to employ in a crime thriller - they stem from the deepest part of us and ruin our character and our relationships as they erupt unchecked in our fallen hearts.

So, what's the solution?

The most popular 'remedy' (that doesn't work) is to just 'live and let live' - to play the pretence card that 'I'm not like that', until the day comes when what we are catches up with us, and there's no longer any place to hide from the pain and despair our "carefree" attitude has caused us and others.

The other "normal" option (just as empty) is to seek to bury the wound beneath a mountain of therapy and/or medication so we can 'project' to the world a 'portrait' that appears calm, cool and collected. Most of us probably spend a fair-share of our times "living" somewhere between these two pretences.

A friend of mine took note of a poem he once saw scribbled on a wall, which he included in a book. It read: "I have taken the pill, I have hoisted my skirts to my thighs, dropped them to my ankles, rebelled at university, skied at Aspen, lived with two men, married one, earned my keep, kept my identity, and frankly, I'M LOST".

That's the word we need to come to terms with - 'lost'. Our vile side tethers us to our miserable condition. We know we're meant for so much, but so much of what we are produces nothing more than a rotten, stinking mess of ruin in what we say and do - we're chained to a deadly dreadfulness that keeps dragging us into more of the same dung.

The remedies we apply may hide the stench, briefly, but they cannot get down to the root and deal with what counts.

That's why we need God.

Not the "theoretical" type who exists in some distant notion, a billion miles away from what we're going through, but the One who is really here, closer than your breath, who wants to come to make you free, for good, from your empty, killing parody of life.

Life-saving surgery is radical and total in what it takes to truly put us right. Saving us cost God completely - He sends the most precious part of Him, His Son, to be nailed to a cross for the horror and misery of our sin- to remove the stain of your ruinous heart and replace it with a nature fed by genuine freedom, mercy and love.

He is holding out that goodness to each of us, not as an order, but as a precious gift, encouraging to come, to become whole by everything He provides.

That's the choice - live on in our misery and inner desolation, or become someone who can truly live well, enveloped in an unceasing love given by the one who has given His all to restore us to what we are meant to be.