Falling Short

So often in these days I recognize the distance between what I long to be and what I find myself being. So often I read words that I desire to live and yet find myself running from their instruction in the same moments.

Why am I not always able to say with the psalmist that "earth has nothing I desire besides you" (Psalm 73:25b)? Why can I not always claim that "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21)? Why are my cries so often opposed to what God calls us to? How is it that I find myself so double-minded when I truly long to be focused only on the Lord?

The stain of sin is upon humanity and I am among the weakest. I long to be compassionate, loving, forgiving, open, honest, humble, patient, kind, whole-heartedly seeking after the Lord and turning the other cheek. Yet I find myself time and again stumbling over the bumps in my callous, selfish, whiny heart.

This is not a dissertation asking for other's affirmation. No, nothing such as that. I just struggle with the weight of the call and the recognition yet again of how incapable I am to ever make progress in the journey. I long for days when I can throw off the sins that entangle and run freely into righteousness. I long for them but those days are not here yet. For now it is still a journey, a time marked only by God graciously giving me more moments to live and seek Him even in my weakness and unfaithfulness.

So when my cries do not echo the cries of those who had their moments of purposefully seeking only the Lord, I go back to this:
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
~Philippians 3:12-14

There is always a journey, there is always refinement, there is always a setting aside of what has come before and purposing to travel forward towards the one goal worthy of our lives. May I at least on some days be found in this pursuit. And for the many times when I find myself sidelined by myself, may I remember that grace is available and present from the One whose love never ceases regardless of how often I may trip and fall.