Words that Don't Go Together

My heart is heavy within me. Why must Christians continue to live the ways of the world? What makes us get up everyday and willfully disobey God? How can people continue to run from God? What does the world seem to be offering them that God does not? I don't understand. I wish I knew. It breaks my heart. Everyday they make the conscious decision to sleep with their girlfriend, to continue to get drunk, to watch the things they should not be watching. The human heart is so desperately wicked above all things. Father, why do we run from you when we have already felt your embrace. The greatest tragedy is not lost people doing things that come naturally to them. The greatest tragedy is when we lay those things down to follow Jesus, to run to his arms, only to leave the arms of Jesus and run back to those things we laid down. We stand in the shelter of the Lord, safe from all harm and evil, only to leave it, to go back out into the streets. We continue to live in the dumps of our former life. We continue to think that those things can give us pleasure. Those things come up and kiss us on the cheek, and we think that they can offer us meaning. They kiss us to betray us, they give us that Judas kiss. Why do I choose to live in the dumpster of sin, when the open arms of the Lord waits for me to come in?

I am totally convinced of the depravity of man. However, it is not from watching the world that I get this. It is from being around Christians, from going to church. People in the world are only doing what comes natural to them. Christians have drank from the cup of the Lord and tasted his sweet goodness, only to run back and stick our head in the sewer and drink. Christians convinced me of the evil of their hearts, because they continue to do evil when they know to do good. Lost people cannot do good, they don't know how. It is when we who know wilfully choose to do evil, that I believe the heart of God truly breaks.