Drowning In Myself | A Personal Paraphrase of Romans 7:15 – 8:1

I have taken a long hard drink of myself and found the result fowl, bitter, and most abhorrent. The aftertaste is a hopeless feeling of self-loathing and isolation.

I have taken a short sip of God and found the result refreshing, sweet, and ultimately uplifting. The aftertaste is the most satisfying and comforting sense of acceptance I have ever experienced.

To my utter dismay and embarrassment, I find that I return over and over to seek refreshment from myself, rather than from God and His ultimate goodness.

Who will rescue me from this addiction to myself and immerse me in the life-giving spring of God’s presence?

May He be praised for all eternity for His indescribably delicious and inexhaustibly refreshing gift to us in Christ.

So even though I may continue to choose the poverty of self over the richness of God, I find that through Him I am neither rejected nor condemned. Instead I am embraced with a love I cannot possibly understand or hope to explain.