Think it through. Three words I’ve heard many times in my life. Three words I’ve ignored nearly all of my life. I was a little bit younger and a little bit stupider than I am today and I’d found myself in a situation. To be honest, it was a situation that was far over my head at eighteen and still over my head today. Yet, there I was and I had to make a decision. My girlfriend at the time thought she might be pregnant and she’d asked me what I wanted to do if she was indeed. I had a choice that I was wholly unprepared to make. It turns out I didn’t have to make the choice as it was a false alarm, but I know what I would have chosen and that fact haunts me today.

Your sin is greater than you. In this case, my sexual lust was greater than my own power. I knew it to be wrong and could cite multiple sources in the Bible, but I was held captive. I was in a prison into which I had walked willingly, but whose key I didn’t possess. Herein lies the trickery of sin as it is so easy to commit and walk in for a time, but soon we realize that we are locked in the cell from which we were freed. No, we cannot break out of this prison as these bars are not physical, but spiritual and therefore far greater than human strength could ever be. No, we something more, someone who has power in this realm.

Our crimson has been washed white as snow. More words that I’ve heard throughout my short life and which I’ve ignored, but which are so crucial at this juncture. Christian, do you not remember that once you were set free from a heart and life full of sin? Do you not think that Christ’s forgiveness also extends to your current misleadings, or are they too great? Are you so mighty that your sins could not be covered by the Lord our God Himself? Are your sins so many that Jesus’ blood has run out? “May it never be!” (Romans 6:2) However, we do have to accept His forgiveness anew for this sin and therein often lies the problem.

There is one way out of sin on our own. Yes, that way is to cover it up. For me, the cover up was in the possibility of abortion. You see what I’m getting at here? When we choose to sin, we must also be prepared to accept the consequences of that action. It’s simple responsibility, but my willingness to follow that rabbit hole then only shows a greater problem I see is that we’re so willing hide our sin that we will do most anything to accomplish that. My story is just a illustration of our gross unpreparedness to accept the consequences of our actions and instead we continue to choose greater and greater sins to hide each successive cover up.

“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” — Romans 6:8–11

Where can we go? I said earlier that our sin is greater than we are. However, I also said that Jesus is capable of forgiving any and all sin. He is, but there is a caveat. We must in the process forsake our strong desire to cover up that sin. That’s right. We are called to bring that struggle into the light of community and allow God’s tidal wave of grace to not only wash over us, but some others who may be in the same boat but need help overcoming. In other words, we need God’s grace so that He can help us overcome what we desire to turn from as well as to lift up those brothers and sisters out of the mire into which they’ve fallen. Yes, grace is the only place we can go and we do not travel alone.

Sin is far greater than we want to acknowledge, but grace is all the mightier. Friend, substitute whatever you are struggling with into my story and you see they are not so different. We are all great sinners, at least I know I am, and incapable of overcoming what ensnares me like wild game. However, if we but turn to the Savior, He is quick to release us and give our hearts wings once more. The alternative is to trade our traps for even bigger ones, but at least we will be free from the former trap. How long can that last us? No, there is nowhere to turn but grace, however before we leap it’s necessary to think it through.