I have felt helpless at various times in my life. Helplessness is the awareness that as much as I want to do something to change something I cannot. It’s realizing that I cannot help the circumstances to proceed to change for the better. Rather, things are either fixed in the current mess or will get worse, and there is nothing I can do about it.
The truth of helplessness is not a matter of perspective nor mindset. It’s a reality. Helplessness is when I reach a point of no return. An event is in the past and cannot be undone and the consequences will happen.
People who believe in the power of positive thinking will never accept nor acknowledge that at times all can and do reach a point of helplessness with something. One such reality is the helplessness brought about when a sin is committed.
Paul wrote, “You see, at the right time, when we were still powerless…” (6a) Other translations have the word “helpless”. Once a sin is committed in either mind or action I cannot undo it. Nor can I stop all the consequences of that sin from happening especially the internal consequences.
I am helpless to get rid of my sin and its consequences. The main consequence is that I lose a relationship with God from then on. There is nothing I could do to change the broken relationship with God when I sin. I am helpless in sin.
However, what is impossible for man is possible for God. “You see, at the right time, when we were still powerless (helpless in sin), Christ died for the ungodly.” (6) Jesus allowed himself to be crucified (8). His blood completely drained from his body (9). His selfless act took away the sin that I commit. Through Jesus, I have now been reconciled to God (11). The human helpless condition was helped by God.
I am helpless in sin, but I am never without hope in Christ (2, 5) “And hope does not put me to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into my heart through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to me.”