Fallen

... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God... Romans 3:23

I spent a day in Biloxi, Mississippi last week. I had driven through Biloxi quickly a few months ago, but this was my first opportunity to spend time really looking around at the city and the state of things there. What I saw troubled me - but it was not the emptiness or devastation that troubled me; rather, it was the fact that, for this first-time visitor, the destruction I saw around me seemed eerily normal, as if it belonged there. I found myself celebrating signs of survival while not fully comprehending the breadth of what was ruined. With no frame of reference for what was before, I couldn't begin to recognize what was missing now.

"We have forgotten how hard we fell."
These words were part of a sermon I heard a few weeks ago. The pastor was talking about our sinfulness, and how flawed and weak we as humans truly are - a reality we forget all too easily.

These words came back to me as we drove around Biloxi. I realized that in many ways, my experience of Biloxi that day was much like our experience of the world as Christians. Sin seems eerily normal. We find ourselves celebrating signs of human goodness while not fully comprehending the breadth of evil. With no frame of reference for what Adam and Eve knew in the garden, we can't begin to recognize - much less mourn - what is missing now.

As I spend time in Biloxi this summer and get to know the people who have been laboring there for the past two years, I have no doubt that I will gain a better picture of what Biloxi is today, what it used to be, and what it will take to get back to that.

As I spend time with the Lord and get to know more of his character and his heart, I have no doubt that I will gain a better picture of his glory, how far I have fallen from it, and what it will take to be able to behold his glory once again. Though I know the answer on some level - that nothing I do could bridge that gap, I want to ponder this, to live with a healthy reverence for how far I've fallen, and how great my God is.