'For I do not do the good I want to do'

It served me right.

My car is not a flash or expensive model, more of a practical and reliable workhorse to get me around.

The make is sufficiently unusual (a Dacia Duster) that for the last four years the Archbishop of York has greeted me as ?Duster-man?. He might not know my name, but he does know my car.

I recently visited the car wash. The woman there reminded me as they always do: “Do you have an aerial on it? If you do, remember to remove it.”

“Yes, I do,” I replied, “And it?’s never been a problem.”

“Well we don?t accept responsibility,” she concluded and into the car wash I went.

You know what happened next don?’t you, otherwise why would I be writing about it?

Half-way through the cycle there was a loud twang and the aerial flew off, flashing past my eyes.

I knew it was not a good idea, I had been told it was not a good idea, I had been warned of the consequences and yet I still proceeded. I only had myself to blame.

In the Bible, Paul in his letter to the Romans put it simply: “For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do.”

It is part of the human condition that we either think we know better; somehow disconnect our own actions from their results or, despite all the warnings, we take a chance and then get cross when it does not quite work out.

Christians recognise what we are like as human beings; getting things wrong, even when we know what we should be doing. That is what we mean when we talk about sin.

It is, from the earliest days, integral to our condition.

Christians also believe that in Jesus this tendency is addressed, condemnation is avoided and we are freed from our present state to one where we naturally seek the ways of God. It does not absolve us from responsibility in our lives however.

I know that I really should have removed the aerial, even if it had been through a car wash many times before. And I will have to live with the consequences of my actions.

But God knows what I am like, and has done something about it, which in the great scheme of things gives me hope.

ENDS