The Response.

(This is a quite personal reflection from some years ago. I am thankful Romans 8 comes after Romans 7)

I have heard this feeling called “emptiness” – that which is experienced after a willful moral failure. This, however, is inaccurate. I do not feel empty. For I do not feel. What is experienced is nothing like a feeling at all. Rather, it is a lack of existence entirely. You stare devoid of emotion at your hand and passively observe how it moves. You dare not feel anything because you know that neither grief nor peace has delivered you in the past. Even rationality and thoughts themselves are cut off as your heart becomes a void. You resign yourself to nothingness as your identity slips into comatose.

Then! the Lord of Heaven and Earth, Creator of all, condescends and declares with piercing acuity, “Are you done moping around, pretending yourself to be some great philosopher or the main character of some cosmic tragedy? Do not be so arrogant. You are very small. I will get my glory. You are not meant to be God. You are designed to look to me with humble adoration and service. Come to me. I will give you rest.”