The Paradox of Humanness

John Stott proposes the reason for the ongoing duality in us in his book,Essentials:

'It is part, I think, of the paradoxical nature of our humanness that we are both breath of God and dust of earth, godlike and bestial, created and fallen, noble and ignoble. That seems to be why we both seek God and run away from him, both practise righteousness and suppress the truth in our unrighteousness, both recognize the claims of the moral law upon us and refuse to submit to it, both erect altars in God's honour and need to repent of our ignorance and sin.

How often have I felt the desire to move forward towards God. To grow in the spirit and leave the things of the flesh and the world. But instead again and again I find myself, for a total lack of will, back in a rut of ambition, desire, jealousy and resentment. My powerlessness itself is proof of my need of a saving God.