how often can you fail?

Failure is a word I hate. Not that I infrequently encounter it, rather that it and I are too acquainted. For many, failure is associated with 'losing,' with 'not measuring up,' with 'not good enough,' with 'others are better,' with 'messed up,' and so on. And with some, it quickly unravels to the thought of 'no one, not even God or my closest family likes me.'

Failure is a field where lies can grow. Failure is also a pause in time where, if it is not met with goodness, can harm for years to come. I've felt many many times. Whatever arena it is found--sports, morality, relationships, writing--it can crush a soul.

But we don't have to live in the presence of our past; we don't have to wake up and live in the memory of yesteryear. It is not some magical mind trick; it is Jesus. 

All the times toy have not failed will never satisfy you. You can do 1,000 things perfectly right and the one thing you failed in will ruin it all. And if you did 1,000,000,000,000 things right you'd feel even WORSE about the one failure! You can't escape the imperfection of who you are. But we can go to Jesus in our imperfection and know that we are forgiven, we are loved, our existence is worth maintaining.

We are all going to fail in a multitude of magnitude and type. But if we are walking with Jesus our failures don't win; he wins. Death won't sting, it'll open a big door entering Jesus' brothers and sisters into an eternity without the torment of those mistakes we all have made.

God is good in his grace he grandiosely provides. If we are his, our failure loses, not us.

forgetting your memory

We sometimes like to use Paul's words in Philippians, where he says, 'forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,' as a reason to never ever be thankful or delighted to be the Christian God has made us. We reason that if Paul is ditching everything in his past to go hard after more and more of God then, by golly, so should we!

The over-the-top people always offend everyone else because they tell everyone how terrible of a Christian they are by not being like them; but then there are others who are all about some self-abasing-but-I-actually-pride-myself-a-lot inner thoughts kinda folks--it's easier to harbor my feelings of arrogance than manifest them. But both run with Paul's words of forgetting what's behind.

Is this past-neglecting really a commendable mental exercise?

No.

In the Old Testament God often told people to make memorials. This usually happened after God did something to save the people or fulfill a promise. The purpose of these, usually, mountains of rocks was for the purpose of remembering what God had done, how God blessed his people. When a family was traveling or exploring and they came across, say the monument built after the Jordan River crossing, it was to be used as a reference for a story; a story of how God, the YHWH they still worshiped, freed them and brought them, after 40 years of chasing their tail, to a Promised Land.

I personally, like some red-faced and sweating boss, want results immediately--YESTERDAY!--and it better be new and exciting. I have a hard time soaking in what God has done already. And Paul isn't saying Be unsatisfied with your worship; be unsatisfied with God; be unsatisfied in your walk with Jesus! Paul goes on to say Let us hold on to what we have already attained.

So let's remember what God has done. Let God's acts of time past give faith for today.

Jesus needed help

The Gospel according to Luke has some different perspectives than the other Gospels, especially with regard to Jesus' last days. So in Luke 22.43 we read that an angel from Heaven appeared to Jesus in his distress and strengthened Jesus.

Don't miss that: an angel from Heaven strengthened Jesus! 

I think it would be far too easy, though helpful, to summarize and say, 'If Jesus needed help, so do we.' But there is something bigger and better going on! God the Father knew that his son needed strengthening and the Father provided that strength for his son.

I don't know what the Greek word translated into 'strengthen' means, except strengthen; meaning, there was a lack or a need of provision form without. The Man needed God. God needed God. And God provided what was needed.

I'll be the first to admit that I also don't understand all the intricacies of Jesus' manhood and divinity at play here, it's all as clear as mud to me. That isn't the point though. This doesn't mean that God will give you everything you think you need. We can't take one story and mean it will happen for everyone.

But, as the children's song goes, 'when we are weak he is strong' because God loves us, his sons and daughters.