Saint and Sinner

I get it finally.

I get what Derek Webb was talking about in his song Saint and Sinner. He's talking to his soon to be wife, letting her know what the deal is before she enters in to this life long journey with him.

if you want my glory you gotta take my sin...
if you want my bed you gotta take my lust...
if you want my spirit you gotta take my booze...
if you want my child you gotta take my kin...
'cause I'm not a half a man
A saint and a sinner is what I am

... and it doesn'’t get better once you see the light;
you wake to find that the fight has just begun.


I've always figured I'd have to trick a quality girl into marrying me. Make her think my glory is bigger, my status is bigger, my sin is smaller, and once I do that successfully, BOOM I pop the question (i say 'BOOM!' because there will indeed be bomb explosions involved in my proposal. but i digress). I have a tendency to try to portray a different, more perfect Martin. I do this partly due to insecurity, partly due to not understanding the Gospel, partly due to many girls' unrealistic expectations. I've known 4-6 relationships (one of them my own sorta) where the girl broke off the relationship because the guy had lusted before. The situation is not that the guy's not holy enough for her, or that he's not stepping up to the holiness plate; the issue is that she doesn't know what real holiness for guys looks like. Nonetheless, this makes me feel like I have to have it all together all the time or be the guy who is good at faking all that by repenting of stuff like giving too much or saying long prayers with big words or spontaneously breaking in to conversations about helping the poor or discussing how much one loves work because it's working unto the Lord. I can play that game, but will hate myself in the meantime. I'd much rather have an 'I am who I am by the grace of God' mentality than submit to others' fabricated unbiblical standards of sanctification. In other words, I'd rather just learn to be a man who is content with himself (this may take a while) yet discontent with his holiness, and then just wait on a woman who gets this song. I've only met a few females who do. I plan on marrying all of them.