penitence

5:42 am-

The coffee is chuckling to fragrant life on my countertop, and I have just removed my seething bowl of oatmeal from the microwave. A few lights are on, but the living room is dim and chilly.

I am thinking about how frighteningly easy it is to be false. How I speak the language of faith constantly, and yet my inner woman paints her face and wears scarlet. How even my purest thoughts and gestures bear the stain of hypocrisy and guilt.

I am thinking about the blood of Jesus, and how I manipulate and abuse it.

I'm thinking about how I need to be cleansed at every moment, and how exhausting it is to be holy from the inside out, and how impossible.

But my feet are planted on a Rock, and my heart is filled with the renewing Spirit. I know that I cannot slip back into the crevice of complacency while I walk this straight and narrow path: my eyes must watch my feet and ponder their Word-lit way. Courage and fortitude and patience are not only called for but also supplied when I request them. His yoke is easy; His burden is light.

"He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as He hears it He will answer you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide Himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. ...You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, the Rock of Israel." Isaiah 30:19-20, 29