"among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others."  Ephesians 2:3NKJV

There is no denying the fact that we are all from the same cloth. God made man, and women out of the dust from the earth, and he breathed his life into us. As christians, we try to deny the flesh, our sinful, lying nature. We are never successful in this! We don't have the ability, but try we must.

When we have exhausted our own resources, we painfully look up at Jesus and say, What am I missing here? And he says, You are missing me. We look at him in denial and say, But Lord, you know that I love you, and I serve you every chance I get!

He takes pity on us and sincerely tells us: You are trying to do the impossible in your own strength. Rest in me, and allow my strength to flow through you, and then give me the praise. We look up at him, with total confusion and say, But I thought I was doing all that? I know you did, he replies, with a smile.

It kind of flows like a river.  There are times when we flow with God, in the river of his spirit, and there are times when we get out of the river. It's not intentional, but something comes up, that grabs our attention, and our eyes leave our Lord, and we fall back into old ways.
 Oh how I wish this wasn't me any more! I hate confessing that I still do this at times. It is so humbling, but our friend and Apostle said the same thing! And he hated it too. {Romans 7:14 }I suppose I should be happy that I am in the same group as our dear friend.

At least we can grow in our ability to love one another through all of life. God is full of compassion, and knows our every step. His patience far surpasses anything we could ever know. He is beyond our expectations, and is past figuring out. It's always interesting trying to figure his next move, which makes for an amazing life.