Tag Archives: Failure

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Ezra 6

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With great joy they celebrated the Feast of Unraised Bread for seven days. God had plunged them into a sea of joy; he had changed the mind of the king of Assyria to back them in rebuilding The Temple of God, the God of Israel.  Ezra 6:22 (MSG)

When I was a kid, my dad always had the radio on. It was as a kid that I learned to appreciate an old radio news man and commentator named Paul Harvey. In the morning and at noon, Harvey would offer his own special take on the day’s news. In the afternoon, however, that distinctive voice pouring out of the radio would share a unique biographical story with a twist at the end that revealed the mysterious person he was talking about. Harvey called it The Rest of the Story, and I always listened intently to see if I could figure out the identity of the mysterious figure he was talking about.

I thought about The Rest of the Story as I read today’s chapter. At the beginning of 2011, we were journeying through the book of Jeremiah’s prophesies and the “weeping” prophet was warning the people of Jerusalem that they’d better straighten up or God was going to send the King of Babylon to take them into exile. In Jeremiah 18 I pulled out this verse for our chapter-a-day:

So I went to the potter’s house, and sure enough, the potter was there, working away at his wheel. Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot. Jeremiah 18:3-4 (MSG)

Almost a year has passed. And now, at the end of 2011, we read “the rest of the story.” The people refused to listen to Jeremiah so God, the Potter, crushed the marred pot he’d been working on. The Babylonians swept into Jerusalem and flattened the city, along with Solomon’s temple, like a lump of clay on the potter’s wheel. The people of Israel were taken into exile where they languished for many years.

Then, miraculously, a new king emerges who sends a remnent of Israelites back to Jerusalem to begin rebuilding the city and the temple. The Potter is back at work, redeeming the lump of clay which had been broken, and making it into something new for His purpose. The people are plunged into a sea of joy as they begin again their worship in the new temple in Jerusalem.

As I look back over the years, I see how God is writing “The Rest of the Story” in my own life. Broken and marred, I have (on multiple occasions, actually) felt life falling in like the walls of that clay pot on the Potter’s wheel. Though it felt like some kind of tragic end in the moment, God was no more finished with me than He was finished with the Israelites stuck in exile. God is a God of redemption. God is a God of hope.

He’s not finished with me yet.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Deuteronomy 24

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When a man takes a new wife, he is not to go out with the army or be given any business or work duties. He gets one year off simply to be at home making his wife happy. Deuteronomy 24:5 (MSG)

Having been through a long-suffering marriage that ended divorce and having walked beside friends in their own marital struggles, I’ve found that the issues which plague a marriage are often present at the very beginning of a relationship. I’ve both experienced and heard many others say they could look back and see the problems which eventually grew to choke the relationship surfaced in the honeymoon and quickly spread through the early years of the marriage.

The first steps are critical to the success of the marital journey. The relational roles and patterns which are formed in those initial months very often set the course for the direction the relationship will take and the destination to which it will eventually arrive. This is not to say that couples can never overcome a rocky start to the marriage, but the truth of the matter is that they often do not.

How fascinating that God’s direction, given in ancient days, was for the groom to take a year off of work or war to spend at home with his bride. God makes it clear that time and proximity are crucial ingredients for the success of any relationship, especially that of marriage. Women are complex creatures in which men find eternal mystery. Unlocking that mystery requires our own God given sense focus, strength, and tenacity. If we go AWOL at the beginning of the relationship, it is very likely we will have lost the keys forever in our flight from responsibility.

It is said: “happy wife, happy life.” We men would do well to remember (and by that I mean we need constant reminder) that a woman’s happiness begins with a partner who is present, engaged and attentive. These ingredients do not guarantee the success of the relationship, but without them the odds of failure become a sure bet.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Exodus 3

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Take another look. Moses answered God, "But why me? What makes you think that I could ever go to Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?" Exodus 3:11 (MSG)

There is a HUGE difference between what God sees in Moses and what Moses sees in himself.

God sees a man who has been prepared since birth for this task. God sees a man who knows Pharaoh's court, who knows Egypt's ways, who has an insider's understanding of the Egyptian political elite. Beyond that, God sees in Moses a humbled heart (that He can raise up), a heart stirred by justice (through which He can deliver the law), a man who, after years in the wilderness, now knows how to shepherd bunch of silly sheep (and can now lead His "flock" out of Egypt).

Moses, on the other hand, sees a murderer. Moses sees an escaped criminal. Moses sees a failure. Moses sees a worthless shepherd who has nothing to his name but what his father-in-law has provided for him.

How easily we look at ourselves, desire to believe what God says about us, but can't see past the worst of what we know about ourselves. Like Moses, we react to thoughts of what we could do for God with our buts…

But, I'm a failure.
But, I killed my unborn child.
But, I'm an addict.
But, I'm a secret sinner.
But, I'm fat and ugly.
But, I'm an adulterer.
But, I never finished college.
But, I'm a victim of…
But, I'm stupid.
But, I'm divorced.
But, I've got an eating disorder.
But…
But…
But…

I am convinced that there is no mere human on Earth, listed among the "great," who did not have as many hang-ups, issues, and failures as anybody else. The difference is not in being a better, more worthy person. The difference is in choosing to believe that what God sees in me, is more important than what I see in myself.

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