How often do we come to our Father in prayer, asking Him to reveal more of His glory and more of our indwelling sin, yet truly rejoice when He grants us these requests? Oh how Christ showed me mercy and grace, allowing me to see the sheer magnitude & destruction of my pride, a sin which I am so quick to see and judge in others, but deceptively blind to in myself. How it consumed me at that particular moment, how completely unguarded I was that it overtook me and made me blind and deaf to all else; I was engulfed by anger, bitterness, and malice for moments that lasted so long I, still in my sin, actually began to feel ashamed, yet it was as if I was trapped, unable to release myself from it, unable to extinguish the blaze. How I sinned against my fellow brother in that internal fire... Regardless of how it was set off, it was made clear I did not have it all under control, I was not as self-aware as I had thought..
As I thought back to this incident today, I was again consumed with that resentment. I pleaded with the Almighty Lord to show me mercy and release me from what I could not release myself from. Oh the deceit that lies within our hearts! Yet we sinful believers can still stand before the Lord clothed in the Lamb's righteousness because the awesome saving grace of Christ. I pray and hope and long for the days when our Lord returns to reign over the heavens and the earth, when He finally eases our sufferings against the flesh, that we may simply live every moment in holy worship & fellowship with Him!