Failing forward
I’ve been condemning myself lately. Taking my regret and my shame, and using those things to abuse my very identity—to seek and snuff out any flickering embers of God’s work in me from the ash pile of my life’s mistakes. I hate myself for failing in this way or that, so I fail in other ways to set myself up for failure, so that in some sick way I was right all along to doubt any good work God is doing in me.
It doesn’t help that the moment I try to do what’s right, I get laughed at. You’re going to diet and exercise?! Yeah, right. You’re going to try to clean house? Good luck! ‘Place is a rat’s nest! You’re going to lead worship this Sunday? You won’t do any songs that normal people know. You’re writing again?! Just don’t say anything provocative, like we know you always do.
When your inner voice sounds like the voices all around you, you’ve got trouble. My inner voice too often sounds like my mom, my dad, my grandparents... all people who love me, but all people who live in that old, puritanical, ‘God’s wrath’ kind of mindset.
Jesus Christ is compelling me to set aside regret and shame, and walk in the true freedom with which he has made me free. Those whom the Son sets free are truly free. He alone is Lord of my conscience, and has freed it from even my own habits of regret and self-condemnation. Moreover, when I condemn myself, I'm re-crucifying my Lord. He did not come to condemn (John 3:17), he came to do the Father's will (6:38), and the Father judges no one (5:22). Patterning his life after the Father's heart, Jesus didn't condemn even a willful sinner (8:11), and he went so far as to confirm that practice when asked (12:47), saying that if anyone hears his teachings but doesn't keep them, he does not judge that person. If even the willfully disobedient are met with mercy, what cause do I have for self-condemnation or for shame? What good does it do? And isn't stepping in to judge myself in God's absence, condemning myself on matters Christ never condemned, just another way that I seek to knock God off his throne and install myself as lord of my life?
This teaching is difficult, and requires maturity to really understand. And in order to become mature, you've got to learn from some foolish things. In God's upside-down Kingdom, where the least among us are first, you've got to fail your way to spiritual success. And I've done a heck of a lot of failing. As you saw above, this theme is central to John's gospel. But in John's letters, the apostle didn't stop there. He said, "If your conscience condemns you, take heart: God is greater than your conscience." I would encourage you to read all of John's first letter, as it deals with this idea in the context of the first century church. Does any of this mean we have full license to sin? Absolutely not! But John says, it's quite the contrary; this idea helps us overcome sin. It's what makes us overcomers! Freed by Christ, we're not bound to keep on sinning. We're free to fail and try again. Fail and try again. Fail and try again. And in failing forward we start to see success. Failing often, we start to find ourselves in that place of reliance on God for direction and for mercy. From that reliance on God, we begin to piece together behaviors which constitute a victorious Christian life. And as we work without, God works within, both to will and to act in accordance with what pleases him (Philippians 2:13).
Be encouraged in that. Though we may fail, though we may really 'hose it up' as my pastor Austin says, in Christ all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28), so even our failures can be redeemed. No, especially our failures can be redeemed.