Failure- Never Giving Up

We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity-like perfect charity-will
not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God's help.
Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help,
or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure,
ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first
helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always
trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness,
or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul
which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and
teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust
ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not
despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal
thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.


Mere Christianity
C.S. Lewis


Mat 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.


Rom 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.


Php 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.


Jas 1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.


We fail. We not only fail, we fail miserably. We fail terribly and often. We fail and that failure brings disgrace, despair, anger, confusion, you name it failure is no stranger to every human being in existence. When we fail we have to deal with that failure. It's so easy to give up when it seems all we ever do is fail, and that all we will ever continue to do is fail.


C.S. Lewis says it clearly enough- Very often what God first helps us towards is NOT the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again.


Always trying again.


Heb 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us


Let us LAY aside every weight
Lay aside the...
Sin which easily besets us


Run with PATIENCE the race that is set before us.


PATIENCE.


Endurance, tolerance, perserving


ALWAYS TRYING AGAIN.


We have to have FAITH.


Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen


Things HOPED for... you hope for what you DON'T have.


We truly need to believe that our failures are stepping stones. Sometimes we slip right off the stones and have to start all over again. Sometimes we do have an achievement it spurs us on, but then sometimes we turn around and lose that achievement and then some.


We MUST grow a faith in Christ, not ourselves. Our hope must be in GOD, never us, never. We don't achieve- God achieves through us.


Again C.S. Lewis said it nicely-- We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven.


May God help us to keep hoping, to have patience, to have faith, to trust solely in Him now and always. May our failures not lead us to despair but have us turning to God asking forgiveness and trusting in Him...


Php 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ


AMEN.