Some of us feel discouraged about ourselves today. We are disappointed by our ongoing sins. We fall short of our desires to be faithful. Our efforts haven’t amounted to much. It would be a gift to look at our lives and feel satisfied with our progress in sanctification or accomplish what we set out to do, but we often fall short. In this disappointment, I am learning the beauty of the words “I’m trying.”
A few months ago, I was reading Mark 15. It was the first time I noticed the chapter was split into three parts. The first section highlighted people who were against Jesus: the chief priests, the crowd, the soldiers, and even passersby. They hurled accusations, mocked, and reviled him. They wanted him dead (Mark 15:3–32). In the middle was Jesus’s crucifixion. And in the end section, there were people around Jesus who demonstrated devotion to him: the centurion who faced him and said, “Truly this man was the Son of God,” the women who looked on from a distance, and Joseph of Arimathea who courageously went to ask Pilate for Jesus’s body (Mark 15:39–47). In stark contrast to the first group, the actions of these people
To continue...read the full-length post originally published on this site.
