Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” (Lamentations 3:22-24)
Ever want a do-over day? Well…today was one of those days for me. Okay, so maybe the entire day wasn’t horrible – but it sure did have some moments. It was just one of THOSE days. I was impatient, stressed, and snippy at my husband and my kids (and my dog 🙁 ). Ever have one of those? Things were going so well, and then ALL OF A SUDDEN – wham! A little eye roll here, a little sarcasm there, and push this button and Christ-like flies out the window! Ugh! Mulligan please!…..Epic fail!! 🙁
Lucky for us, the Word is full of people who missed it — who really wanted to do right and just ended up doing wrong. One thing I love about the Word is that God doesn’t sugar coat anything. He puts it all out there for the whole world to read – not just the triumphs but the dismal failures too….and we can take comfort and hope from it.
Let’s look at a few, (just to make me feel better):
Take Abraham, for example, you know, the Father of Faith? The one who against hope believed in hope and became the father of many nations…this mighty man of faith who TRUSTED God….didn’t quite trust Him enough to protect him from the kings and lied about Sarah being his wife and got into trouble. Hmmmm…..God’s love and mercy covered and He protected them. Faithful God!
What about Moses? The man God used to part the Red Sea and bring water from a rock. He was God’s friend – God spoke to him face to face! He TRUSTED God, but obviously not enough…God wanted him to speak to the rock but he hit it with his staff instead….oops! (It seems like a minor thing — but God wanted to demonstrate the power of words through Moses, and he didn’t obey.) God’s mercy covered and He brought water from the rock anyway. Faithful God!
We all know King David. Sweet King David who danced before the Lord with all of his might and was called by God Himself, “A man after My own heart.” Sweet and obedient and tenderhearted King David — who slept with another man’s wife and got her pregnant and then had her husband KILLED! Wow! But God was merciful, and it was one of King David and Bathsheeba’s sons that became king after David. Solomon – the wisest man on earth. Faithful God!
I could go on. There are many, MANY more! I’m so glad God didn’t hide these failures. They show us in great detail the mercy and love of God towards His people. Did these men have consequences to face? Sure they did…..but God still uses them show us that He uses imperfect people. We can take comfort and have hope that He can take our epic fails and Mulligan moments and intervene for us and turn them around somehow. What a faithful God!
So do we just get down on ourselves and quit trying since God can fix it anyway? Ha ha ha…..No! I love how Lamentations 3:22 starts and ends, “Yet I still dare to hope…” Do I hope in my ability? No – I hope in His ability in me. Ephesians says to “put off” the old man and his way of thinking and “put on” the new man with a renewed mind. It’s a process. We are not perfect. We are going to miss it. And when you mess up, you ‘fess up. But don’t give up! Keep pressing on! Today is a new day with new mercies and grace! You can do it!
The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust. (Psalm 103:13-14)
For more on God using our failures, read What Happens in Vegas….