Not a single one

Words like a swift smack to the side of my face this morning. Words from the Word that gives life and encourages and loves and holds me in times hard and dances with me in times great.

Not what I was used to, but definitely what my soul craved, unbeknownst to me at first.

Words read, "But they have all gone wrong; they are all equally bad. Not one of them does what is right. Not a single one."
-Psalm 14:3

Four little words combined in the culmination of a Psalm haunt me, make me fidget uneasy:

Not a single one.

Wait, the true nature of my heart now revealed, what about me? All I try and try to do, and it's not good?

So much of my life wasted, inaccurately  measuring it as if it were some treasure pot of my achievements, my successes, my, my, my. 

I ask myself, Who am I fooling?! Do the good acts of a sinner cleanse me of sin? Surely not. So are any of us, whether missionary or martyr, really good?

 

This would hit like an accusation, like a filthy attack from behind when I could not see, but I see this weakness as a gift to be treasured, held carefully in the vessel of my heart, kept as gold. 

For this one verse is not the whole story.

No,

It waits longingly to see it's salvation, in the one whom I love: Jesus, sweet and strong.

My failure is just as imminent as His love will make up for it and more. 

My sins, my snapping at my family and my hesitation to talk to that person about Jesus and my shortcomings of all varieties will be made clean and forgotten. 

More love lies here in a surrender, in a realization that I cannot do the saving. 

No longer stumbling, no longer covering up, no longer hungry, grasping at things on a shelf too high for my tiny understanding of righteousness to reach. 

 

And a loving Savior brings me to a new level of blessings in being His blessing, not my own.