Dealing with disappointment...

Have you ever been deeply frustrated by your own failures? By the fact that, no matter how you try, you just can't seem to get it right?

Perhaps the better question would be, is there anyone out there who hasn't experienced this frustration? If so, please contact me: I'd love to know your secret!

The truth is that we're all too familiar with our own inadequacies. We have an amazing experience that builds in us great expectations. We decide that this time things are going to be different, that we're going to get our act together, be disciplined, have control...

We have so many lofty expectations of ourselves and then all at once, with one stupid choice or one utterly ugly moment, all of our lofty perceptions of ourselves come crashing to the floor. And as we're sweeping up the pieces again, through the tears of frustration that sting our eyes, we're reminded of how many times we've been here before... and begin to dread how many times we'll be here again.

What is the hope with so many broken promises? What is the hope with so many failed attempts?

I'm wrestling with that thought myself today and wondering how God can be so patient with me despite so many shortcomings.

I turn to the Scriptures for relief and find that nagging sense that I've been neglecting my reading of them as a source of additional frustration. But God's mercy breaks upon me as I recall that I am not the only one to have miserably failed:

"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."
Romans 7:14-25

Wow. 'For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing.' I don't know that I've ever felt so understood as I do in hearing one of the great men of church history speaking so plainly the frustration I've always felt. Have I not also cried out on many occasions "what a wretched man I am!"?

But fortunately, Paul points us to the right conclusion. Not of another wave of energy and effort. Not in more misguided hopes in our own righteousness. Pure, humility-inducing rescue. That is the only cure for this sin-sickness that plagues mankind. "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" He will. He has. He still does. He has not forsaken me, nor grown weary of my constant need for redemption.

And once again, I find myself humbled: sinking, drowning and ever in need of a Savior.

But His mercy is new every morning and He knew I would always be in need of Him.

And again to that banner He has purchased for me with His own blood:
"I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" -Galatians 2:21

His death was not in vain. He did not die to save that which was already secure. God does not indulge an elaborate show in the death of His only begotten.

No, He died because we could not otherwise have lived. He rescued us because we were in need of rescue. And we remain in need today. And whatever made us think that He is intimidated by our persistent need? Who told us that we could continue to be Christians without Christ?

Drink deeply of the grace of God that beckons you today.

All frustrations and failures aside, call upon the Lord who died to save even those who should know better. His love for you has not faded and is the only thing stronger than the sin that has been your cruel and constant companion. Run to redemption even now and live.