The Wading Pool

I know this won’t come as a shock to any of you that actually know me, but I’m not perfect.  Not by a long shot.  Like Paul wrote:

“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”  Philippians 3:12, NKJV

But…I press on.

I struggle.  Not necessarily in the ways in which I once struggled, but I struggle nonetheless.  I’ve traded the sins of youth for the sins of middle age (which…gulp…I guess I’m at, since I’m 35, right?  I mean, 35 still sounds young, but…I’m halfway to my allotted years!).  And then there are some sins that maintain their pull, regardless of vintage, such as pride.  Oh my Lord, how that one has cost me over the years!

But…I press on.

As I look at my life, and specifically my life since I began to follow Jesus, I see diverging paths.  On the one hand, the sins that once bound me do not anymore.  Praise His Name!  But, on the other hand, the closer I get to the Lord, the more I read His Word and seek His face, the further I seem to have to go.

Need an example?  Ephesians 5 says that I am to love my wife as Christ loved the church, and gave Himself up for her.  I wish I could say I did that.  I wish I could say that I always lay down my life for the good of my wife.  Shoot, how many times have I stayed in bed and let her get up with the kids at o’dark thirty?  Is that dying to self?  Nope.

But…I press on.

I press on because I know that this thing called “sanctification”, this process of becoming like Christ, is just that:  a process.  I, like Paul, have not arrived, will not arrive, in this life.  But I know this:

“Beloved, no we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” 1 John 3:2, NKJV

One day, I won’t have to press on anymore.  One day, the struggle will be no more.  One day, praise His Name!  I will be like Him!

But until then…I press on.

(btw…that’s my buddy Kevin in the pic above.  He’s pressing on, too!)