Looking for God

The swirling mist envelopes, constantly changing yet obscure at every angle. Longing for vision, for clarity, the eyes are straining but cannot see.

The dream is liquid, like waves growing large with frothy ripples on the sand. Keeping my head barely aloof, my eyes grow gritty, burning with anxiety, searching and hoping.  

With eyes failing to see and senses not detecting, my spirit grows weak.  I am alone.  

Hopelessness is death.  Not the abrupt departure but lingering and devoid of light, it is torturous.

Hanging onto the speck of light barely discernible, the soul reaches out of the pit of pity, the heart quickens and while hope tries to rebirth itself from this despair, one is cautious because this one is aware of undeserving, worthless, failing existence.  

But the light grows steady, until burning with intensity, this soul finds itself on the brink of the grave, ready to step forward with new purpose and reality. Recognizing the futility of plans dashed, admitting the limits of abilities on solid ground, this light...this hope...washes one clean, clearing the vision and cleansing the heart.

Oh, no miraculous ending of burden here, nor the absence of culpability, but the light of hope becomes faith.  Faith that carries, uplifts, calms and grows and keeps pulling us out of the pits of life.  For though we stumble, yet God is faithful to provide because He...never...leaves.   

"Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led.  But it does mean loving and knowing the one who is leading.  It is literally a life of faith.  Not of understanding and reason - a life of knowing Him who calls us to go.  A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, but is a life of day-in and day-out consistency; a life of walking without fainting."                                                                                                                ~ Oswald Chambers 

  

Mess-upper!

"Failure" must come early in a child's life.  Learning to do so many things necessarily means failure occurs often, but the urge to succeed is great and failures become a part of life.  Normal.  Expected.  Accepted.

Then childhood is left behind and the young adult is expected to blossom and thrive...leaving failures in the past as the urge to excel, impress and surpass takes on a life of its own.  Failing ceases to be a learning experience, but something to hide, deny and cover up.  Shameful.

Disappointing my dad was conflicting as I struggled to maintain my independence...making mistake after mistake after mistake.  Admitting error to a parent at any age, knowing the heartache you brought them, is humilating at best.  But there is no eraser of life, no magic to make mistakes disappear, no time to rectify.

Mess-upper was a nickname I cared not for.  But heard enough, the image sticks, looming above my head at every turn.  As a mother raising her child with no experience, a wife trying to please her husband, as an employee striving for perfection, a friend trying to keep the peace...as a servant trying to please God, the fear of failing can immobilize oneself into believing any effort is thwarted before it's begun!

The fear of failure becomes part of your breath, tainting efforts as it resides in the recesses of your mind, drawing you away from new opportunities before they've begun.  How to justify my failures...how to lose this mess-upper stigma from the fragile skin of my soul? 

"Perhaps the hardest lesson we learn from failure is that we aren't as great as we thought we were." (Warren Wiersbe)   Ahhh, there it is!  Pride, and injured at that, can demolish the strongest of desires, the meekest of intentions, and  the sincere attitude of gratitude disintegrates.  The cloak of perfection slips and reality stands tall.

Peter was a failure.  He failed Christ at least three times.  He suffered the agony of his Lord predicting and witnessing his failure.

 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.  (Luke 22:61-62 ESV)

Can you even imagine the horror and shamefulness that must have enveloped Peter as he watched the Lord being tortured and crucified within those next couple of days, the dispair he must have felt?  Yet Christ appeared to him after his resurrection, giving him the command to "feed his sheep."  He trusted him to spread His gospel and entrusted lives to Peter's undeniable love of Christ to prevail.  It became not about Peter but only about Christ.

Failures may still stalk my path, but somewhere the Lord is working them for good.  It is no longer about me being a mess-upper, it is Christ working in me to deny myself at all.  I am freed from failure.

"Failing is not a disgrace unless you make it the last chapter of your book." 
- Jack Hyles