Who is righteous?

For your name’s sake, O Lord, Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.

Psalm 25:11 (NKJ)

I was just thinking this morning (reading the purpose driven life again!) how evil doings and wrong actions are looked upon as something abnormal; we gape and rant at those who choose death over life… evil, over good. But after all our ranting and raving about those who we see as so much lower than ourselves, it’s really not amazing or hard to believe that so many people would make such horrible, even obviously more painful decisions in their lives; it is our nature to choose the wrong path… it is our true image, when the worst decisions and actions are brought out in our character. Why be so amazed at the young man committing suicide? It is much easier for us to push aside grace and fall into a fatal state of self-pity than to rise up and call ourselves blessed. Bad or painful actions is not shocking or out of ordinary; choosing grace, goodness and the path to well-being is out of character for us; and when it happens, that is what should be marveled at. We are creatures full of ourselves… no man is righteous; no, not one. O God! Pardon my iniquity; for it is so great!