One day, this will all be behind me.

The man that I am. The man that fails. The man that falls short. The man that is too weak, too distracted, too tired, too flawed to be who he’s trying to be.

I find comfort in knowing that Paul—the apostle Paul, a chosen vessel of God!—cried out with the same frustrations:

I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

(Romans 7:21-25)

I try. And in the trying there is failure. Pushing toward growth means constantly running into the walls of your own limitations—constantly having to acknowledge how far you are from where you want to be.

But there’s growth, too, isn’t there? With God’s help, the walls are getting pushed further and further back. Slowly, slowly, almost imperceptibly—not in a perfect, linear motion, not without painful steps backward—but it’s happening.

You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man who has been created in God’s image—in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth.

(Ephesians 4:22-24, NET)

The old man doesn’t like to be laid aside.

The old man fights it.

And so we fight back.

It’s not an action that happens in a moment, but over the course of a lifetime. We keep trying. And the trying means failing and getting back up. It means pushing forward toward something unattainable in this lifetime—but the value for us, in this life, is in the pushing, not the attaining.

Jesus told John, “‘Behold, I make all things new.’ And He said to me, ‘Write, for these words are true and faithful'” (Revelation 21:5).

What a beautiful thing it will be when the God who makes all things new makes me new, too. When the former things that have passed away will include the old man who refused to let go—and who I didn’t always do a perfect job of letting go of, either.

And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.

(Revelation 21:6)

But it’s not done yet. It’s still ahead. And so, not having attained the goal and being not yet perfected, “I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me” (Philippians 3:12). And I do this—we do this—knowing that one day, finally, once and for all, the wretched man that I am will become the wretched man that I was.

God speed that day.