Romans 7:13-25

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but
I do the very thing I hate. (7:15)

We know about mixed motives, dueling desires, failed efforts to
change our lives. The always-reappearing New Year’s resolution.
The habit we can’t break.

John Donne asks, in a poem that’s become a Lenten hymn, “Wilt
thou forgive that sin, where I begun, which is my sin, though it were
done before?”

“My sin,” my very own sin. The one so painfully familiar, from hours
of praying, wishing, hoping it will go away, even as we are enticed to
keep it closed.
How might this Lent dislodge that “thing I hate” from its
privileged place?

Here, can we sense its grip loosening, even a little? What step can
we take toward new life, for us and for the world? Who can help us?

—Josh Thomas