That which is common to man

I've been thinking a lot about sin lately. I meet with a group of girls on Sunday evenings to go through a study on Titus 2. Last week we talked about purity, which led to a discussion about sin, which led to a discussion about temptation. The verse (I think it was supposed to be our memory verse) that has stuck with me all week, thus giving me the title for my entry: 1 Corinthians 10:13. "No temptation has seized you except that which is common to man." For some reason that's just been resonating in my head all week. Yet, as for it making a difference in the way I act, I've been failing pitifully.

Last night, for example, I had a lengthy phone conversation. Towards the end of the conversation, I just started to become really unresponsive and lethargic, which is pretty unloving to the person on the other end of the line, no matter who it happens to be. The conversation basically deteriorated into both of us being frustrated. I went to bed thinking about how unloving that was of me, and woke up with the same feeling.

When I woke up, the passage that came to my mind was Romans 7. I first remember really digesting this text during a mission trip on Spring break of my senior year in college. It was a rather long road trip from Colorado to Texas, and I got into a conversation about the text with some of my fellow van riders. In that passage, Paul wrestles with something I feel that we all do - the battle between desiring to do that which is good, but failing to carry it out. Read on...

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 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 the sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives 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 what I do is not the good I want to do; no, 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.

So I find the law at work: when 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 the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

I couldn't have put it any better. I earnestly want to drive to work calmly and peacefully, and I wind up road raging like a maniac. I really want to speak to people with a loving tone of voice, and I wind up mired in frustration and impatience. Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Someone pointed out that Paul, whenever he references his own sin, is quick to also reference his salvation through Christ. Too often I stop at just recognizing my own sin, and I get stuck there. I need to learn to also recognize the forgiveness I've been given.