Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Romans 7:24–25, ESV
Anger, frustration, impatience, distrust, disappointment, discontent, and the list goes on and on. These plague us in our daily lives, don’t they? Someone says the wrong thing or doesn’t meet expectations and our hearts turn in, don’t they? Sin is, as God told Cain, crouching at our door. If we were left to our own devices and the fulfillment of the law of God was dependent upon our own actions, we would be hopeless. Yet, it is our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has freed us and given us the promise of new life. He is the only one who can break the bondage of sin in our lives. He is the only one who can take our broken pieces and fit us back together, making us into something even more beautiful than we were before. He is like the artists in Japan who take broken pottery and make them beautiful by repairing them with gold, silver, or platinum, filling in the places left marked from where they were once shattered in what is called Kintsugi. Our Lord takes the lines of our sin and covers the brokenness of our souls with the purity and love of our ever-restoring Father.
Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.