What Wal Mart Teaches Me About Depravity

What I’m about to share will be the most uncomfotable two minutes of my life.

Well, almost the most uncomfortable.

Believe me there are many other things that can probably top what I’m about to share. But since I needed something to get your attention, I figured that would do the trick.

I realized why I don’t like going to Wal Mart.

It’s not the long lines because of the one cashier getting paid minimum wage to service a bazillion people. It’s not the crowded parking that seems to be mayhem on pavement. It’s not the creepy people who shop at 1 AM either. (How would I know that part? Ummmm.)

I don’t like going to Wal Mart because it reveals my own sinful, messed up desires.

Let me explain.

Scenario: My wife asks me to go in by myself to get a few things while she sits in the warm car.

My mind: Really! You know I hate going here.

Scenario: I see that Twizzler’s and Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash is on Rollback. I pick it up even though I am only supposed to get trashbags and shaving cream.

My mind: Meh. That’s a good deal. (Consumerist mentality)

Scenario: My unsmiling, unwelcoming cashier grabs my two-foot long Twizzlers at the 20 and under check out line, while the person behind me starts loading her feminine products and case of beer almost over my stuff on the 2x2 square feet of space.

My mind: Isn’t it your job to let me know I’m important as a customer. And yo, lady, back the $@#! up! If I were’nt saved, I’d be serving you a … (let me stop there.)

Scenario: I’m reversing nice and slow from my parking spot. My car is half way out when a car comes speeding down the parking lot forcing me to come to a stop, while the car maneuvers around me and continues on.

My mind: !@#$^%%^#*&^(@&$&^@%*&@(*&@#(*@&

The Bible describes my condition:

Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Romans 7:18

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

Now, before you react in one of two common ways (judgmental of me or judgmental of the other), let me say that I know I have a problem. But do you? I cringe when I think those things? Do you? I confess and repent and try my hardest not to think that way or do that thing. Do you?

Romans 7:24-25a

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Recognizing my depravity has led me to trust less in myself and more on Jesus. It doesn’t mean that I won’t struggle with a depraved heart, but it does mean that Jesus made a way to overcome it.

I no longer have to sin, I now choose to sin. And the fact that you and I struggle with it is proof enough that we no longer belong to ourselves but to the one who paid our price and who had the first recorded “roll back”.

Now go hug those Wal Mart greeters!