Overcome

We are not born innocent

We are born sinners

We are not pure of heart

Our hearts are deceitful

Our ways are not good only to be tainted by what we are taught

Our ways are wicked from the beginning

Hatred, envy, greed, lust, selfishness are all inborn characteristics

We are born unrighteous into a fallen world

And we stay that way

It is who we are

 

So, do not be dumbfounded

When you see the unspeakable

Do not be amazed at the depths to which man can fall

And ask how can this be?

It can be because it is who we are

The murderer, the rapist, the slanderer, the racist

It is you

It is me

It is us

And we cannot overcome by pretending it isn’t us

By pretending we are not born this way

We cannot overcome by pretending we are good

We cannot overcome by passing a law

Or saying the correct thing or by imagining that the flaws in them

Are not the flaws in us

 

Our only hope is One who has overcome

Overcome sin for us

Overcome deceit for us

Overcome hate and envy and greed and racism for us

Overcome the very world that we are born into

Overcome our very selves

You cannot grow out of who you are

But you can be born again

Born anew

Born into a new life

Not by works or by anything you say or do

But by the One who overcomes

By the Overcomer

 

If there is to be hope

Peace

Change

It will not come from you

Or me

Or them

But it comes from the Overcomer

For He has overcome