I Can't

I am self-conscious and insecure. There I said it. I worry about looking like a fool in public. I dread gaining too much weight. I am nervous that my short comings and ineptness will surface at the most inopportune times. Amazing how little thoughts can weigh my vision down.

I think that is one of the reasons I love the New Year. I can make my to do list of self improvements. I can survey my life and tell myself that if I read more I won't be foolish. If I have a work out and drink less Mountain Dew I can replace my keg with a six pack. If tweak this and overhaul that my friends and family will never see my imperfections. Then I can hold my head high.

One problem... I do this every year.

It is becoming clear to me that I can't fix me. No amount of trying, training, or teaching will make me who I am called to be. I cannot discipline or will myself into a better me.

I can't...

I can't...

I CAN'T!!!

I am finding so much freedom in those words. Whatever "fixing" I need, I can't do it. What is even better, I don't have to.

"work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." - Philippians 2:12-13

I recently read that the only thing I can contribute to my salvation and sanctification is the sin that makes them necessary. I can't fix me but I don't have to because it is God's work to fix me. It is God's work to change me and shape me for His good pleasure. I am free to live. Free to be.

I am free not to try to save myself with a list of rules. I am free to bury myself under mountains of condemnation because of my imperfections. I am free to move past my failures. I am no longer a slave to sin and therefore no longer need to create a personal law to show me when I have strayed.

I can't, but Christ can. Knowing that it is He who is at work in my life, what I need is Him. So my focus is no longer on what I can't do — fix myself. And on what I can do — know Christ. And I as seek to know Him better I find that He is at work in me willing and working me for His good pleasure. All the fixing I couldn't do on my own, I find he is doing for me.

So what if I can't. He can.