"What's wrong with you?"

Imagine a mother unpacking groceries from the back of her car. While doing so, her young child was staying occupied by playing with a ball next to her. By accident, the child dropped the ball, and watched it roll down the driveway and into the street. Without thinking, the child waddled toward the ball. Obviously distracted, it took the mother a second to notice where her child went. She called out to her child, “Stop! Come back here! What’s wrong with you? You can’t go walking into the street like that!”

Of course, this mother is coming from a place of love, but it’s an unfair question to ask anyone, let alone a little child. 

“What’s wrong with you?”

Let’s be honest here — there’s a heck of a lot wrong. We are flawed creatures standing on the wrong side of an infinite chasm separating us from our Creator. And, on top of that, crossing that chasm is something that we ourselves cannot do (alone). 

Becoming the person God created us to be, and hopefully crossing the chasm, takes a lot of hard work and grace. The path to virtue and ultimately perfection in Christ starts with understanding where we are, how we are flawed, and what our weaknesses are. 

It’s only by acknowledging our deficiencies (what is indeed wrong with us) that we can understand our need for Christ and His abundance of grace.