Human Nature

Sinful Nature

 

 

Somewhere in time, last Saturday, I had a busy day.  I had to work some overtime. I still had to do my normal Saturday running around and I was having lunch with two of my nieces (the bright spot of my day).  On my way out, I was stopped at a stop sign waiting for traffic to clear.  It was a four lane street, with two east bound lanes and two west bound lanes.  I need to cross the east in order to go west.  For some reason, this was a heavy traffic day.  One way would clear and the other would be busy.  Just when I had the opportunity to make it out and just when I had the chance to put my foot on the gas pedal – the car behind me honked.

I don’t know how to describe the overwhelming feeling of anger, irritation and nastiness that suddenly rose up with in me.  I wanted to put the car in park and march back there and give that driver a lesson in safety – but, I really did have my foot on the gas, so these feelings stormed my soul as I sailed across the two lanes of traffic I had been waiting for all along. 

Now, I was having an argument.  There was no one in the car with me, but I was giving that other driver a piece of my mind. Have you ever done that?  Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t need another person to have an argument, I can carry on both sides.  

I was fuming and sputtering when a still small voice spoke to me and it said – look how easy it is for the sinful nature to rise up. 

The voice was right.  I went from happy Christian to irritated driver in the time it took to sound a horn.

Romans 7:19

New King James Version (NKJV)

¹⁹ For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice²⁰ Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

²¹ I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. ²² For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. ²³ But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. ²⁴ O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

My struggle was not unique.  We all struggle at times, but God doesn’t give up on us.  Even though I got angry for a silly reason, God still forgave me. 


My worst enemy at times may be myself and I may have lost my private battle with my anger, but God is not through with me yet.  

 

 

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