We discussed self-control Sunday, the last of the fruits of the Spirit. I know what’s going through my head as I study, write, and give these messages, but what’s happening in the heads & hearts of those listening? That’s always an interesting thought to me.

Have we let ourselves down, when it comes to self-control, did the things that we knew weren’t healthy? We knew they weren’t healthy, sometimes even destructive, knew they were beneath us, they didn’t fit in who we are and/or who we are becoming, and yet we did them anyway. Then, we looked in the mirror and felt that familiar twinge (or tidal wave) of guilt or sorrow. I can see that some of us know that emotion very, very well. Maybe others have had it, once or twice, some quite recently. Maybe one or two of us are just beginning to discover our identity, whose eyes are only starting to see that there are things that aren’t healthy, things that would be beneath our standing as children of God. Some are thinking about loved ones who are engaging in things that are tearing them (and us) apart. And probably others are thinking about lunch. Or the World Cup. Or just watching the clock.

I think about the areas where I am disciplined, and then it doesn’t take long to drift into the ones that are less so. Sometimes, it’s jarring how fast that transition moves. And then I ask, “why?” Isn’t this quality, this fruit, just an across the board kind of thing? Like, either I am disciplined or I am not. You can’t be kind of pregnant, isn’t self-control like that? What does self-control look like, anyway? If I want to work out, how much would display self-control? What if I take too many days off? (And what’s too many????) Why can I do these things but not these? Why do I have blind spots?

And while we’re at it, why do I do the things I don’t want to, at all? If I don’t want to do them, it only stands to reason that I wouldn’t do them, right? Nope. And, then, why do I not do the things I DO want to do?

Of course, in a super-well known passage in the Bible (Romans 7:15-20), Paul writes about exactly this situation: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the 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 sin living in me that does it.”

Have you ever read this closely? I do not understand what I do. That makes sense, I don’t understand. Then, we see that if I don’t want to eat those cookies and I do, I agree that the Law is good? No, I don’t. And sin still lives in me? I still have a sinful nature? I do have the desire, I sure do, I don’t want to do the things that make me feel like garbage in the mirror, and I want to do the good things, I really do. But when I don’t, it’s not me????

We could unpack this passage forever. But I think what I’m trying to say, at least today, is that whatever goes through our minds, whatever we feel when we look in the mirror, is that we are not alone. Wherever we are right now is a really great place for us to be right now. I know we all can easily start to think, “I SHOULD be so much further along, I SHOULD not have this trouble anymore, I SHOULD be perfect.” But what this Romans passage tells me today is that we’re all on a path. Even Paul, a superhero of the faith, writer of much of the New Testament, struggles, does what he doesn’t want to, doesn’t do what he does want to. Even Paul doesn’t understand what he does. And sin still lives in Paul.

When my boys were very small, each of them had trouble with their weight. They fell 2 lines on the sacred growth chart, and 2 lines make the doctors absolutely freak out, so for the oldest, we had endless appointments with specialist after specialist. Every meal was of massive importance. The stress hung like a thick blanket over each bite, on him and his parents. The tests were all good news, and the moment one recommended a feeding tube, we decided to step out of this hamster wheel and take a breath…he began to eat. When the youngest followed the same pattern, we did some tests (not the whole battery his brother faced), and opted out. Of course, then he ate, too.

Our anxiety over where we SHOULD be, who we SHOULD be, is really not helping us. We’ll gain our weight as soon as we give ourselves a break from the shame of the should’s. There is nowhere we should be, and there is nowhere we are where God’s grace can’t cover us. That’s comforting, right? And it just might free us up to start moving again.