How Do I Get There?

I have heard the call, Lord. You've asked me to empty myself and take on the very nature of a slave, to consider others to be better than myself, and to become nothing. You have called me to die so that I might live and to become the least so that I might be the greatest. You have told me to take up my cross and sometimes I can do this... for a few minutes or even a few hours, but then I drop it and run back like a pathetic addict to the comforts with which I can medicate my pain.

Computer games, food, soda, movies, laziness, time on Facebook, medications, bursts of anger over insignificant things... I turn to them instead of you. Sloth, lust, gluttony, avarice, wrath, despair, pride. Lord (if I may be so bold as to call you that), I am a slave to them all. I help the poor at my door, but only so much. I give him my shoes, but I don't invite him into my house for a meal. Or at least not everytime.

I've heard the call; I know your will. I just can't do it. The power isn't there. The words of your servant John ring in my head: "Anyone who is a child of God does not sin." But I sin. I do it all the time. I do it willingly and defiantly. I make a habit of it, of choosing to please Greg Coates instead of others and instead of you. And I feel terrible about it; I'm overwhelmed with guilt.

Surely this isn't the life you want me to live. Surely you want to take me to new places and see new wonders. You want to make a saint out of this broken, stubborn man, but I just don't know how to get there. I've tried the Bible reading, the fasting, the prayer, the serving the poor, the taking the sacraments, the accountability, the small group and one-on-one discipleship groups, the revival meetings, the voracious reading of Christian mystics, the regular attendance to church, the going on the mission field and leaving everyone behind, the preaching and teaching and scrubbing dirty floors and hugging the drug addicts. All rubbish. It's not doing it. I'm not there and I want to be. How do I get there?

Send me an e-mail if you don't mind. I check it quite often.