so many times we fail

It’s a really great thing when you can look back and realized that you have been faithful to your walk with the Lord for a certain period of time. For the last year my goal has been faithfulness and devotion, and I have tried to keep myself in check in those things regarding my walk with God.

However, after a certain period of time, you get so comfortable in your walk, and get so used to staying in the right that you forget how easy it is for us, as humans, to fall. You get smug. You think, “hey, I’m not too bad at this, I probably could go it alone!” and then suddenly something happens and you realize how easy it is for us, as humans to fall.

The temptations for sin are all around us. Its naïve to think that these things don’t exist or that they aren’t always waiting for us to have a moment of weakness. Even the good things in life can be turned bad depending on our lack of reliance on God and our remembrance of the place that He has in our lives and the lives that we are supposed to live.

This uncertainty and fear seems counterintuitive to the solace and peace that we are supposed to receive as children of God, but I beg to differ. The very basis of our faith is the fact that we indeed our sinners and that God has been gracious to us. We are sinners saved by faith, and no matter what are deeds are, good or bad, that will not change. This truth is one of the most beautiful tenets of our faith!

However, the shame and guilt that comes with sin are things that seem to want to pull us away from God. The overwhelming feeling that we have failed, that we have again shown imperfection brings the sinner to feel unworthy of receiving the great things that God has in store for them.

We forget that the Christian life is one of cultivating perseverance, and that the sin itself, while perhaps a terrible blemish, is not the thing that will keep us from God. God has already taken care of the sin! We need to pray yes, that God will forgive our sins, but also that He gives us the strength to keep on walking and that when we fall we remember that the Lord, in His loving kindness, is there to pick us up. Apart from Him, we falter.