The Lie of Self-Improvement

Hello. My name is Lucy, and I have a flair for the dramatic.

Every couple of {days} weeks, I come to the conclusion that I am not good enough. I am not a good enough Wife. I am not a good enough Mother. I am not a good enough housekeeper. I am not a good enough person. This, of course, comes as a huge blow and sends me into a myriad of prayers and plans, and most importantly - self-improvement. If I am lucky, I manage to scrape out a better existence for a little while before I start the cycle all over again.

It finally occurred to me that, apart from being insane, my plan of attack was just not working, and I think I've figured out why. Because it has been my plan. My self-improvement. My fundamental error is assuming that there is anything I can do in my own power to make myself a "better person."

It is comforting to know I am not alone in this struggle. The Apostle Paul apparently felt the same way,

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do....

For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have a desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is the sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to {sin and} death?

Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!"      Romans 7:15-25a

Okay, so it's quite a mouthful, but I love this so human moment that Paul shares with us. He's practically frantic! What I want to do I don't do but what I don't want to do I keep on doing! I know the feeling Paul.

But Paul is a step ahead, because he's got the answer. Who will save me? Jesus. Paul knows what I seem to be learning rather slowly, that he is incapable of doing the good he wants to do, in and of himself. Only Jesus can do that good through him.

See, wanting to be better = good. Thinking I can make myself better = bad. In this age of be who you want to be, pull yourself up by your own boot straps, we have been sold the lie that the power to be the "best we can be" is somewhere inside of us if we only use it. But Paul knows that the only thing inside us the desire to do good and the sin nature that keeps us from doing it. I hope you realize how freeing this is! This is not a gloom and doom message about how messed up we are and how hopeless our situation is. It's a wonderful redeeming message about how messed up we are and how it doesn't matter, if we let God use us despite our weakness. He has the power to make us exactly what He wants us to be. Exactly what He needs us to be so that He can bring about the work He's called us to.

For me, that means abiding in Him and learning to hear his voice so that I can be the Wife, Mother, and homemaker that He has called me to be. He brought me here to this place, to this task, and it would be foolish of me to assume that it is now my responsibility to make it all happen. My responsibility is to be here, and to be willing. Willing to answer when He calls, to do the hard things, and to get back up when I inevitably stumble. That is some serious grace, and I don't know about you, but I need to swim in that today.

Thanks be to God, who delivers me though Jesus Christ our Lord!