A far from perfect Christian – that’s me

It’s never fun having to admit you’re not as perfect as you would like to be. It’s always awkward writing about faith after knowing you just blew it big time and someone out there is reading that post about the need for us to be good Christians and thinking “hypocrite.” I don’t know that I’ve specifically written a post suggesting we need to be good Christians, but I mean if I had that’s what a few someones in my life would say, especially this week.

Sometimes you bite your tongue so long it bleeds and before you know it you’re lashing out in pain and regretting everything that comes out of your mouth and flies through your fingertips. Maybe you don’t regret finally telling someone you’re pissed off but you are really mad at yourself for how you did it because you’d been doing so well at not going off like that lately and now you’ve blown it. It’s like stepping back to square one, head down and saying, “okay, fine , but next time I’ll do better,” knowing you might do better next time but some other time you’re just going to blow it again and go right back to square one.

This week I was the epitome of what a good Christian isn’t, complete with the bad language. Did the person have it coming to them? Not really because God doesn’t believe we have it coming to us so why should we think someone else does? What I said came out of frustration at what they said not because I dislike or hate the person. On the contrary, I love the person very much and I let an issue get in the way of expressing that because I wanted them to just shut up already. Wanting a person to shut up already is not a good excuse for telling them off the way I did and I regretted it very quickly. I knew it stemmed from hurts I thought I had addressed within myself long ago.

“Every time those old feelings of anger come up, you put them under the blood of Christ,” my mom has told me and told me again.

And she was, and is, right, but yet I seem unable to do what I know is right.

The apostle Paul wrote: “For I do not understand my own actions For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)

Oh, Paul, you and I would get along so well because this week I did the very thing I hate and I don’t know how to fix it. I suppose the books you wrote might be a good place to start and meditate on this week.