Don't Waste It

Don’t waste it

She felt like she had failed. Her training and expertise met a challenge that proved to be more than she could manage. Unless she changed course, she would hurt herself and her family.  When we talked, she had retreated and was putting things back into perspective.  What would she do with this?  Would she stuff the experience into some recess of her memory, letting it fade with time?  Or, would she learn from it, grow through it, and let God use it?  Our conversation revealed the latter choice.  She will be an even better person now.  I can say that with confidence, because I have failed, too. The moment of my most public sin proved to be the breaking point in my life.  It ripped open my proud heart for all the world to see. God whispered that I could run and hide, or I could look up to receive His grace.  Over a few month’s time, one of many tears and deep soul-searching, the Scripture’s promise of the unconditional love of my Abba changed from words in the Book to conviction in my heart!  In those terrible days, I lost the illusion of self-sufficiency that I had clung to so tenaciously.

Gordon MacDonald, author and pastor, fell flat on his face in mid-life.  His reputation was destroyed and many were ready to see him go, finished as a servant of God. But, he made the choice to confess his sin, take forgiveness, and do the hard work of being restored.  About a decade later, he reflected on that season when he had made such wrong decisions.  “My touch with failure changed a large part of my perspective as a pastor. It gave me an indelible vision of the host of people who enter the sanctuary every week and are staring failure squarely in the face. When I stand to pray, I see two people a few rows back failing at a marriage. Next to them sits an attorney who faces disbarment. Nearby is a man crippled by an addiction to pornography. To his right, a mother who feels a failure with her kids; to her left, the man who can’t keep a job. …  I would never have seen most of these people … had it not been for my own failure. In short, failure gave me a new set of eyes. There is a stewardship to failure. What we learn and gain in our own dark moments is meant to be shared one day with others who face similar kinds of failures. Some of us would like to bury our failures, forget they ever happened. But that doesn’t seem possible. There are too many fallen people along the way who can profit from what we’ve learned of God.”   (Discipleship Journal  : Issue 109)

Have you fallen down?  Is the voice of regret telling you to run away, to cover it up, to abandon faith?  Is the Evil One insisting that God is finished with you, that you should leave the Church and give up hope?

Restoration is not easy! Forgiveness and healing do not usually come instantaneously. However, if we will face life honestly, admit to ourselves and to those we have hurt what we have done, humbly asking them to forgive, we can start again. Yes, God forgives us but it is much tougher to forgive ourselves.  If you’re tempted to try to make a deal with God, reject that impulse. The Bible says that "the sacrifice you want is a broken spirit. A broken and repentant heart, O God, you will not despise." (Psalm 51:17, NLT) If your ‘failure’ is not one of sin, but rather finding yourself overwhelmed by your circumstances, there is this in the Word. "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." (Psalm 34:18, NIV)

 “The danger is not that we should fall . . . but that we could remain on the ground.”  - John Chrysostom