Talking to myself

Why? Why? WHY?

Oh Why don't I do the good I want to do? Why do I keep doing the evil I don't want to do? Why, when I actually do do good things, do I find myself acting on selfish motives with impure, disgusting thoughts? Let me just self examine and talk to myself here for a while. I need to actually read my own thoughts.

My heart is rotten! "Filsthsy" as Gollum says. I hate my neighbor, I speak evil of him, I hurt his reputation, I care nothing for his needs, I dishonor authorities, I am lustful, I despise the good things I've been given and crave my neighbor's stuff, I decieve and try to steal away my neighbor's friends. I fear, love and trust myself and other people and things more than my Creator, I dishonor his name, fail to confess God's Word, call upon other things in trouble and praise and give thanks to myself. I despise preaching; no way do I gladly hear and learn God's Word when there is something more interesting to do!
I love myself, yet I hate myself. I haven't been loving to my sister. I've pushed her out of my life. She becomes angry with me for good reasons. Like an idiot, I fight back, become angry. At the same time I cringe because I know she is right. I'm wrong again, always wrong.
So I try. I try harder. Work harder, converse more pleasantly, paste that fake ugly smile onto my fake sinful face - make it look so innocent. "Nassty" Try to be helpful and kind while in my heart I despise the people I serve. What a hypocrite!
The harder I try, the more sickened I become by myself. Even now, here I am gutting myself, frantically trying to expose all that infected sinful sore while I ought to be tucking my sister in bed, doing devotions with her, singing to her, something... Christ hasn't given me a vocation to blog. He has commanded me to care for my family, for my siblings. To do my work faithfully (another thing I should be doing).
What can I do to make things right? What can I do? I'm frantically scrambling to somehow make myself clean of all this repulsive gunk.

Maybe that is the problem. I can't do anything to cleanse myself. Duh! Why am I even trying? I just spent the afternoon debating that forgiveness and salvation are Christ's work alone, and here I am practicing the opposite of what I profess.

Lord, have mercy on me a sinner!

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ....For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. .....So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand....Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
.....There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the Law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us........ (Rom chapter 7)


But if we thus examine ourselves, we shall find nothing in us but sin and death from which we cannot set ourselves free. There fore our Lord Jesus Christ has had mercy on us and for us and for our deliverance has suffered death and all that we by our sins have deserved. And that we should all the more confidently believe this and be strengthened by our faith in fervent obedience to his holy will, he has instituted the holy sacrament of his supper in which he feeds us with his body and gives us to drink of blood.

I don't usually self-medicate, but this time it turned out pretty well! I'm hearing three voices ringing in my ears now. The first is Dr. Just talking about melancholly. The second is Pr. Dreyer's voice saying, "Get over yourself, Sarah." (ie: stop thinking about earning your forgiveness. Don't focus on you) The third comforting voice is Pr. Stuckwisch: "Do not call unclean what God has made clean. Christ has forgiven you so you are clean."

Man! That's wonderful! I hope whoever reads this doesn't think that I've completely lost my mind. In fact, I do believe that I've found it again.
Praise God!