For I know my trans- gression, and my sin is always before me...

...Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight...
- Psalm 51

Ever screw up? I mean do something bad. I mean real bad. Maybe not something that hurt anyone - nothing that's left a debt of justice in society. Just something that made me you feel like you had really, really let yourself down. But still worse, that made you feel as though you had let God down.

I have.

I think the worst part is that while I feel bad about what I've done, I don't feel nearly so bad about what I perceive to be "lesser" bad things that I've done. I sent an email a couple weeks ago that could have been kinder. I don't feel nearly as bad about that as I do the more terrible (in my limited view) thing I did.

But sin is sin.

Perhaps worse still is the fact that I hardly find time to feel bad at all about the sins of "omission" I walk around with every day. The things that I continuously fail to do that I should be doing (as opposed to the obvious things I shouldn't be doing that I so often do).

And even the righteous things I can do...well we know how those can be classified.

I think when you really begin to get your head around the relatively complete existence of sin in your being, you begin, and let me stress - begin to realize how great your need for an equally complete grace really is. Only when you truly begin to internalize the ways you have grieved God that you see what it would take to stem that grief. And its at this moment that you realize such an effort is beyond your ability.

God had to let Christ down in the ultimate fashion - let Him completely down - on the cross, to cover such a great debt as ours. As mine. What wondrous love is this...

The only response can be a life of daily repentance.

All of the sins that man could do, or even conceive of doing, is like one live coal tossed in the ocean of God's grace. - Madeleine L'’Engle