Coherence Is Hard

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
— Romans 7:15

Every week, our church emails the Scripture readings to those serving in worship.
This Sunday, I’m serving as lector. I received this Sunday’s reading on Wednesday.

Since then, I’ve simply been holding it.

Not studying it. Not trying to interpret it.

Just holding it.

There are seasons when Scripture informs us.
There are other seasons when it quietly reveals us.

The longer I sat with Paul’s opening words, the more they seemed to read me instead.

Life is participatory.

Paul continues,

“For the desire to do the good lies close at hand…”

That sentence stayed with me.

The desire is there.

Beneath our successes and failures, beneath our certainty and our doubt,
there remains a longing for what is good.

Perhaps that longing is not accidental.
Perhaps it is part of what it means to be human.

Over the past year, I’ve found myself writing often about participation.

Life is not something we merely observe or consume.
It is something we are invited into.

Every relationship, every conversation, every decision—
becomes a participation in something larger than ourselves.

The question is never whether we are participating.
The question is what we are participating in.

Coherence is hard.

Paul continues,

“…but not the ability.”

Then, with remarkable honesty,

“For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”

Those words have echoed in my mind ever since I read them.

For a long time, I thought coherence was something we achieved.

Learn enough.
Practice enough.
Discipline ourselves enough.
Eventually everything inside would align.

Paul offers a different diagnosis.

He doesn’t say we lack desire. He says we lack coherence.

“I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind…”

At war.

Perhaps that is why coherence is so difficult.

Not because we don’t know enough.
Not because we don’t care enough.

But because we are often divided within ourselves.

We long for peace yet speak from fear.
We desire generosity yet choose self-protection.
We seek truth yet settle for comfort.

Perhaps the opposite of coherence is not failure.
Perhaps it is fragmentation.

Paul isn’t making excuses.

He is telling the truth.

And perhaps telling the truth is where healing begins.

Grace makes participation possible again.

Paul’s confession reaches its climax.

“Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

Notice what he doesn’t ask.

He doesn’t ask, “How do I rescue myself?”

He asks, “Who?”

That single word changes everything.

The answer is not greater discipline.
Not more knowledge.
Not stronger willpower.

Paul’s answer is beautifully simple:

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

For much of my life, I understood grace primarily as forgiveness.

Romans 7 has invited me to see something more.

Grace is God’s response to our fragmentation.

Grace does not wait for us to become coherent before meeting us.
Grace enters our incoherence.

Perhaps coherence is not something we manufacture.
Perhaps it is something we receive.

Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God patiently gathers together what has become fragmented within us, restoring us to participation in the life we were created for.

As I prepare to stand at the lectern this Sunday, I realize I won’t simply be reading Paul’s words.

I will be proclaiming words that first proclaimed something to me.

Words that have been quietly holding me through many seasons.

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”