Have you ever encountered the UGLY in you?

I was helping a young man face the damage he had done to his marriage. I asked him a simple question Why did you do what you knew was wrong?

I asked him to be careful about his answer and realized that I cannot know answer the question for myself. LORD God have mercy.

Wow, the power of sin. There is a NO that still floats in my mind, feelings and thoughts. This NO demands that there be no GOD to worship, to give totally allegiance to any person outside of myself. The grace of GRACE. Sometimes I can't say YES but I know HE is worthy. The best that I can do is still myself before HIM and ask for grace to say YES. Not just OK or go ahead but YES!

It amazes me, grieves me that after all I have seen of God's work and hand in my life and others, I still doubt, I still say NO. I am in as much need of GRACE today as I was thirty years ago. Then I could blame it on being a fooling youth, now? Wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked. Yes and totally loved.

My weakness does not smell, my sin does but not my weakness but I despise it the same. My weakness reminds me of the birth of my children - they were delightfully wretched and miserably dependent upon their mother and me and we loved it. They were also poor, blind and naked. Is my NO from my weakness or sin? The GRACE of YES is powerful, wonderful and very fulfilling. I recognize that I am not fully saved - will be when He appears. My heart is saved by which I long for the eternal YES breathed into my soul and body.

Why did I sin when I knew it was wrong? Distance between me and my Savior, Jesus Christ.