Still in the Wrestling Ring

To be united with Jesus is to be dead to sin's reign and alive to God's glory. That was the main point of the message on Romans 6:5-11 given at my church this past Sunday. We particularly need to believe this truth when we are tempted to feel hopeless about sanctification, or spiritual growth, especially in the areas where God is specifically working on our hearts. For me, that area is my inclination to turn my good desire for a child into an idol, something that I demand to have and expect to satisfy me, something that I love more than God. Last week, I felt like giving up in that area. I had grown weary of wrestling against the same sin for two years, and I was ready to resign myself to a life of unchanging defeat. I thought, "Well, I will probably never have a child, and I will probably never learn to be content or to find joy in my Savior despite my sorrows." I needed the reminder that, by faith, I am united to Christ, I am dead to sin's reign, and I am alive to God's glory. I am still fighting against infertility and its accompanying temptations to self-pity and anxiety; I haven't been taken out of the ring. But, I have been picked up off the mat and my opponent is now handicapped. I can't give up, because I have been given new strength and new courage to wrestle against sin and to live a life pleasing to God. Christ's death and resurrection bestow new hope, that sin and its effects no longer have control. When infertility threatens to overwhelm me, when all the odds seem against us conceiving, when despair and discontent seem inescapable, I must be more aware that all of those foes are subject to my Savior and King, who has made me one with him.