The Thing That Couldn't Be Done

He tackled the thing that couldn't be done;

With a will he went right to it.

He tackled the thing that couldn't be done;

And he couldn't do it.

Paul: “I don't understand myself. What I want to do, I can't do; but what I don't want to do, I do" (Romans 7:15).

Gallons of ink have been spilled over this verse to establish the provenance and period of Paul's life that prompted this confession. Was Paul thinking of his pre-conversion, or post-conversion days? 

My answer would be neither. Paul wasn’t thinking of a specific period in his life. He was establishing a principle that’s true every moment of our lives. (Note the present tenses: "I am...") Any time we try to implement a law (any law) we will fail."The flesh (self effort) profits nothing (John 6:63).

Benjamin Franklin famously worked out his own list of thirteen virtues that he deemed "necessary and desirable"—temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility—and determined to master them one at a time.

Franklin wrote, "My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judg'd it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro' the thirteen" (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin). 

Franklin tackled the thing...and he couldn’t do it. He gave up mid-course.

When it comes to bettering our behavior, resolutions, vows, promises, declarations, disciplines, diets and exercises are useless. They don’t work very well, or for very long. Lasting goodness is the work of Another. It can only be achieved "through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 7:25).

We must then hand ourselves over to Jesus to mend or make us, and refuse to help him with the task. In time his goodness will flow into us. And out of us. Our part is to ask and keep asking. His part is to give.

"Lord Jesus, come yourself, and dwell with us...and overcome all that overwhelms us. Come into the midst of my evil, come close to my unfaithfulness. Share my sin, which I hate and which I cannot leave. Be my brother, Thou Holy God. Be my brother in the kingdom of evil and suffering and death… Come with me as I struggle with evil. And make me holy and pure, despite my sin and death” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

David Roper

4.29.19