Failing at the Finish Line

Who is this staring back at me?

Today I face yet another failure. This failure plagues me from time to time and has the capacity to really ruin my ability to feel worthy. What is so sad about this particular failure is that I see the crash before it happens and yet I continue at full speed.

You would think that with the extent that I deal with feelings of failure in my life I would have more compassion on the failures of others, right? Sadly I don't feel I do. I was just speaking with a friend who has a similar failure in their life and I remember think to myself "This guy can't be for real!" Yet when I face the mirror of my own failure I am distraught with a sense of guilt and a hunger for God's forgiveness. While talking with my friend I also remember thinking "how didn't you see that coming?" And yet I see my failure clearly and continue. After today's epic failure, God got a hold of my heart. Here I couldn't believe that my friend could be so deceived and manipulated into failure (by another person no less). Holding my judgment upon him, I walk knowingly right into my area of weakness and fail miserably... deceived and manipulated by none other than I.

So where does this leave me tonight? Well, I'm not going to hell... that's for sure! I am brokenhearted over my failure, over my sin. I am brokenhearted because after all the preaching, teaching, and counseling on knowful, willful, and purposeful sin... I fall prey yet again. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I wanted to willfully sin against my loving God and against others, but what I did want is "MY" satisfaction. I wanted "My Way" for just a couple of moments. I wanted to be "In Control". Well, I guess in essence, I wanted sin. I was deceived by my two worst enemies... Satan and Myself. I was deceived because I believed what brought me failure was going to bring success. I know better than that... now I look in the mirror and hurt.

 

The video goes to show that even when you think you have the victory, don't be so ignorant of the race still being run even when the end is near. I watched this and thought with each "epic failure" like the one I experienced today, it has always been when I think I have it beat. Imagine what that racer must have felt like when he went home and looked himself in the mirror. Maybe he couldn't! Second place feels like last when you royally mess up first.

Did you notice Mr. Epic Fail picked up his bike and finished the race? That really got my attention. I might have been so mad with myself I would have walked off the track and found somewhere to hang my head. I wanted to do that with today's failure, but I didn't. I remembered I am in the race to finish... failures and all. God's word says that "while we were helpless, Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6) and "God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (5:8). Maybe I am not out of the woods yet in some of my struggles. Maybe God has a process I have not yet yielded or availed myself too. A couple things I do know is that sometimes I do what I hate even when I want to do what is good. Sometimes the presence of doing good is in me, but the willing I do not do. Who will save a wretched man like me?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:25) Praise God for the beginning of chapter 8...

 

"Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death"