Day by day. by day. by day.

There's a snail the size of my foot that lives in the grassy yard outside my house. The existence of such a creature perturbs me, especially when I almost step on it while leaving my house before daylight to go for my ridiculously early run/walk/jog/mostly walk. I'm not sure why, but I find snails--particularly large ones--more loathsome than almost any other of God's creatures. I don't like spiders or millipedes or rats, but nothing makes me shudder like a snail.

I wish I shuddered like that when I'm confronted with my sin. Nothing should be more loathsome to me than my daily falls in the face of temptation. Since my time here, I have seen varieties of sin I had not identified in my life before, and sometimes I'm shocked. Sometimes, I'm ashamed to admit, I'm apathetic. Sometimes I even try to excuse myself.

But there is no excuse. God has called me from darkness into His marvelous light. I have treasured the words of exhortation and encouragement in Romans 6: "How can we, who are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" Sin and faith cannot grow in the same heart. I haven't taken that truth seriously enough, but I'm thankful to the God that reminds me of it day by day. by day. by day. Over and over, through my quiet time or a conversation with a fellow believer, I am again taught lessons that I am slow to learn. And over and over, I thank Him again for grace.