i am a sinner...

plainly put.

My life has been full of mistake after mistake after mistake. Moment after moment of God prodding and poking me to do something and me saying no. Just flat out no. I somehow justify the decision in my head and do whatever it is that I want to do.

I am fallen.

I guess I should start from the beginning...

Thousands of years ago, there was a man and a woman...

don't all the best stories start with a man and a woman?

Anyways, thousands of years ago, there was a man and a woman and they lived in a garden. Now it wasn't any garden, it was a garden where this particular pair were created.

Now I don't mean where they were born or where they evolved from a monkey.

They were created.

And this place, it was created for them. Not out of clay, or dirt, but the clay and dirt was created as well, by God speaking them into existence. God was/is perfect. He has always been and will always be. He created this earth and thus this garden for these two people, scratch that, the man. He discovered (in the only way that an all-knowing, all-powerful God can discover something) that the man needed a helper. So he created the woman.

Perhaps you've heard this story, these two people were Adam and Eve. Now, Adam and Eve were given a gift that only one other person was ever truly able to experience and share in, the gift to dwell in the presence of the most-high God, the only thing that God asked, was that they didn't eat the fruit of one tree in particular, everything else was there's.

Enter the fourth character in this story, the antagonist. In this particular story, he takes the form of a serpent. This serpent was wise and cunning... and could talk.

with words.

craziness.

He spoke to Eve when she was with her husband Adam and convinced her to eat the fruit. The forbidden fruit. She ate, he ate, and the rest was history.

I eat on a regular basis. I know what it is that I'm supposed to do. I know which fruit God has told me not to partake of or sometimes what I'm supposed to eat. And I don't.

In my life I've committed 2,309,490, sins...

And I continue to sin. I've dealt with pain and sorrow and shame and addiction. I've dealt with the ramifications of others' sins, and I've reaped the consequences. I've lied, I've manipulated to get and do what I want, when I want. I've been selfish, I'm constantly jealous, I take advantage of those I call friends and family. I was addicted to pornography since Middle School. I've laid in bed late at night desperately begging God to rid me of this sin, of this temptation, of this struggle, of this thorn. I'm guilty. My hands are red with the blood shed by the thoughts of my heart. My sheets are stained with the lustful thoughts of my mind. I bring nothing but filthy rags to my God for all that He's given me. My Lord should be disgraced and disgusted for me to call Him Lord. I am undeserving of anything other then death. If I was given what I deserved I would be lying in a fiery lake burning eternally separated from Him and His goodness.

I am the worst of these.

but

Thank and Praise God, that there is a but.

I am saved...

purely and wholly because I serve a mighty God.

who for whatever reason sent His Son to die for me on a piece of wood.

who has showered me with compassion and His unconditional love.

who has blessed me with the absolute best family of friends that I could ever ask for

who has blessed me with the most amazing wife a man could dream of...

He has taken care of me time and time again, provided for me in every way imaginable.

He has delivered me from the struggles of an addiction to pornography

He allows me to do what I love and make money to pay the bills doing it.

He blesses me even though I throw His blessings away.

He is mighty

and He is good.

and He breaks me at times like this, and shows me that I need Him.

I am completely undeserving of everything I have ever been given.

but I am so madly and crazily loved by a relentless Savior, who isn't willing to allow me to be who I was and pursues me and encourages me to be a model of Him. He sees the potential in me as His creation. He sees past my mistakes to my heart and my desperate desire to serve Him fully and wholly with all that I am.

Who am I in front of a mighty, loving God?

I am a saint.