You know what...I'm gonna' be totally up front with ya'--I'm not sure how I even get myself out of my hammock in the mornings....for two reasons basically: 1. I'm usually so wrapped and tangled up in it like a big 'ole spider web that it takes quite a bit of maneuvering and planning just to get one foot on the ground! and 2. I let myself get wrapped and tangled up in a different type of web--guilt. I let frustration and despair from past sin and shortcomings get to me so that I waste valuable time moping around the house or office...just ask my friends and coworkers, they notice it! :) I find myself living out what Paul wrote in his self-description in Romans 7:7-25--"I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out...what a wretched man I am!!! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

Things don't have to be that way though...I know I get dirty all the time. I fall down and fall short of the goal...but guess what, God picks me up, dusts me off, and puts me on the right path. :) And if we read the very next line in that passage (verse 25), Paul seems to shout out in joy--"Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Furthermore, in Romans 3:23-24 we're told "...all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, AND are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." What better news is there???

One of my favorite songs in the movie "Charlotte's Web" is the song Charlotte sings for Wilbur called "Chin Up"! I know you know what I'm talking about! :) But it can be such good advice...can't you imagine Christ reaching his hand under our chin and tilting it upwards to heaven while saying to us, "Chin up, child. Chin up." Or let's look at it in a different way--through the words of a powerfully simple praise song we can joyfully sing, "We fall down...but we get up! Because a saint is just a sinner who fell down, but got up."

I have the tendency to either begin or end with favorite songs of mine, so in that tradition, let me leave you with one by Delirious? called "Investigate". It's a prayer I often offer to God to keep me on that path He wants me. I pray its an encouragement for you:

Investigate my life and make me clean
Shine upon the darkest place in me
To you my life's an open book
So turn the page and take a look
Upon the life you've made
Always, my days, I'll praise

Investigate my life and take me through
Shine upon the road that leads to you
I know you'd heard the words I'd say
Before I'd even lived one day
You knew the life you'd made
Always, my days, I'll praise

Peace for the journey...