Felix Culpa

I’m a torn man, spirit fighting flesh
There’s a battle raging deep in my chest
But all that haunts me, all that leaves a stain
Only sings the sweetness of my savior’s grace

So today I spent a very extensive amount of time exploring Spotify, searching for new artists with some good vibes, and I came across Kings Kaleidoscope's song Felix Culpa.  The title got me a little curious, so I had no other choice but to search this up and gain some knowledge-of-the-day goodness. 

 Felix Culpa:  A Latin phrase that comes from the words felix (meaning "happy," "lucky," or "blessed") and culpa (meaning "fault" or "fall").  

The expression derives from St. Augustine's writings on the Fall of Man -   

       “For God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist.  God allows evils to happen in order to bring a greater good therefrom. ”

We can't really understand who God is and how he works, but to understand this greater good in a world filled with evil, we must understand this simple expression - felix culpa, this blessed fault, this beautiful fall - what makes the Christian life so worth living.  

To fall is to drop into this bottomless pit of hurt, sadness, rebellion, sorrow, and pure brokenness.  As humans, we are always bound to mess up or fall into situations that really break us apart.  This fall is universal; No one is perfect and no one is faultless.  In the end, we're all broken people. 

In the standard of being holy and set apart from the world, we are separated from God.  It's the gossip fueled by hate about that friend of yours.  It's the rebellion against your parents or authorities.  It's anything and everything that has led us to miss the mark of being holy and perfect, any thought of hate, jealousy, pride, greed, envy, wrath.  For the wages of sin is death.  We all deserve death.  As depressing as that is, it's the reality of our existence.   

In this life of imperfection, we can also identify this life of brokenness, the feeling of pain, heartache, and emptiness from guilt and shame taking over every inch of our body. And this can come from the sin we've committed, or the circumstances in life that are not in our control.  Whether Christian or not, we all go through brokenness, through shame and pain; the experiences and trials we face are the things that trigger our fall. It hurts, it really does.  

A lot of people tend to stop there.  They see this brokenness, and they find that there's no way to escape from it.  But see, this brokenness, this pain, is probably the greatest blessing anyone could ever receive.  Through all the things we face and through all the things we've done, God has taken us for who we are and has given us grace.  GRACE, MY FRIEND, GRACE. 

TAKE IT ALL IN.  SOAK IT UP. This grace, this free gift from this merciful and loving God, this concept of receiving something from one who is flawless, to one who is so undeserving, this grace is perfect.  This grace is love.  

Isn't that what everyone needs? In the mist of the brokenness in the world, of all the terrible things we live through, love is the only way to heal hearts and make things right.  

And our God, our insanely great God, took us for our screwups, for our mistakes, our messiness and our dangerous pride and loved us anyway.  Though we will always have this struggle of wrestling with the flesh, there is this beauty like no other, the ability to take the worst circumstances and find this ultimate peace through it.  If grace were an ocean, we're all sinking.

So whenever you're going through something that's just literally the worst thing ever, praise him with all of your might.  Because the way I see it, if this brokenness, if this fall is what has to be done to bring me closer to God, then may I be torn apart so He can make me whole again.  

And that's the beauty of it all.  This concept of redemption is the second chance in life, it's the opportunity to start again.  It's this beautiful fall,  felix culpa, in which I can be thrown so far down this pit of sin and waste and brokenness, and he is there to not only pick me up and carry me out, but to take the fall for me as I have deserved it, to pay the costs of this dirty sinner, this broken and powerless child.  

This is the greater good.  This is His bigger plan.  He lets us fall so we could realize the only way to get back up is through him.  There's nothing more life fulfilling and satisfying than the concept of living out this beautiful fall, this life in which we deserve nothing but death, but through him, we are given life.