Brokenness. Everywhere. In our jobs, in our relationships, and most of all it’s in our hearts.
This week feels like my world has been invaded by the heartbreak of broken marriages… first there was the media frenzy around Jon and Kate. Next came the awkward questions from my little girl as we were innocently looking through old photos… now including extended family members who are no longer in the picture. Finally this weekend I read an interview with the wife of the South Carolina governor (the star Republican, family values champion , and “good Christian man” ) who’s choices have left his bride and their sons devastated. I can’t help but keep asking myself what will really make a difference in the non-stop flow of brokenness! It hit me when I read the words of the Governor’s wife when she said, “I didn’t think he had it in him”.

Maybe that’s where our whole problem lies. We want to think we will be the exception… that “they” are somehow different than us, and that we surely won’t end up like “their” story. The truth is that each of us is born with a natural bent toward selfish stupidity and we’re all just a short slope away from disaster. I know the Governor’s wife meant well when she said she didn’t think he had it in him, but I wonder if their tradjec story would be different if each of them had lived with the reality that both were capable of the unthinkable. I wonder what extra lengths they would have gone to protect themselves… from themselves. I wonder what would happen if we all began living with the realty that we “have it in us”.

It’s hard to admit, but we’re all prone to do anything to satisfy our soul’s desires. Whether it’s tell a little lie, spread a little gossip, or entertain a little flirt, we’ve all got the capacity for stupidity. So here’s the hope: that same space in our souls that is so tempted by our selfishness is also waiting to be filled by the strength, purity, and humility of Jesus… the one who passed all of temptations tests… only to die and then tell about it. So what if today each breath were filled with the sober reality that we really do “have it in us”, but also with the hope that Jesus is waiting to fill that space in our souls, and save us from ourselves.

-Mark