I confess to a tendency of being a bit critical, cynical and even unfair at times when I analyze (call it “judge” if you like) how the Sunday morning Christian church represents themselves through preaching, music, tithes, announcements, skits, dramas, etc. Sometimes that cynicism can be constructive and at other times it is neither productive nor beneficial in the least, it merely fuels my own self-righteousness (not a good thing!).
So recently during the praise and worship portion of the church service, the lyrics “a thousand times I have failed” caught my attention. I immediately began contemplating the dynamics of failure in relation to my spiritual life. That is until the very next song began with a similarly themed verse of “all my fears and failures”, at which point I quickly sat down, grabbed a pen and jotted down this “coincidence” for later deliberation.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the heart of the songwriters, obviously it is quite true that we have all “fallen short of the glory of God”. We also know God to be gracious, sympathetic and forgiving, in whom we can openly confess our struggles (sins) without the burden of guilt or condemnation.
Furthermore, I cannot neglect the fact that Christianity has admirably made strides towards becoming more honest and transparent, abandoning the façade of holiness and hypocrisy that so often identifies us. And I don’t mean to undue any of that here nor do I beckon a return to such a destructive “fairy-tale” version of spiritual living.
However, there is a danger to the health and well-being of our faith when we get hung up on such self-critical, self-labeling and condemning thoughts of being failures. And I have been there, fruitlessly despairing over my transgressions within my spiritual life and relationship with God. Sadly, I don’t believe my experience is an isolated incident, but is a common hindrance to the spiritual growth of many.
I am not suggesting that we stop singing our songs of repentance, which I love actually, however we cannot continue to remain in such a place of mourning over and reflecting upon our past sins. The word failure references something that has happened in our past and God is more concerned with our present and our future. We need to forgive ourselves (because God has already forgiven us) and move on.
In his book Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell recounts a conversation he had over lunch with a new follower of Jesus who laments about his struggles with sin and his continual failures. Rob assessed that “becoming a Christian had given him all sorts of things to feel guilty about. I wondered if becoming a Christian had made his life not better but actually worse.” And this is what I don’t want to see happening to people, the message of the Gospels is supposedly “good news” after all.
It is finding the positive in a fallen world as C.S. Lewis did in writing that “we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven”. Thus, since our failures are forgiven, then they are gone, no longer an embarrassing stain that wrecks havoc on our self-conscious. We cannot be defined by something that has been removed. Can you be a failure when God no longer recognizes the failings? Somewhere, somehow people are not getting this message or they are hearing the wrong message entirely.
I am concerned with the message because the truth is that we can only fail when we are striving towards something or when we try to live up to some unrealistic expectations that we have placed upon ourselves. Spiritual holiness and perfection cannot be earned or attained neither by our own good deeds nor by our obedience to some spiritual rites. As Philip Yancey so beautifully wrote, “Grace comes from the outside, as a gift and not an achievement.”
The Scriptures tell us “there is no one righteous” not as a word of condemnation, but as a message of freedom. It is a truth in which we are to exist and reside within. We need to come to peace with this in our heavily competitive and self-reliant culture, because despite our very best efforts we will never stack up, we will only find ourselves exhausted and burned out. When Jesus offered all those who were “weary and burdened to come to him to find rest”, he was speaking to a religious culture that strived tirelessly to please God through good works and obedience to the law. Instead of striving to earn our “gold stars”, we must consciously choose to live within the undeserved, unearned favor of God.
If our motivation to do good works is simply to please God and to earn his love and acceptance, then we are striving for something we already possess. To again quote Rob Bell, “There is this person who we already are in God’s eyes and we are learning to live like it is true…God is not interested in shaming people. God wants people to see who they really are.”
And we are people who have been “Justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Through Jesus, God has done his part to redeem everyone, and I mean EVERYONE on the planet, our response is to come to terms with that and live like we believe it is true. Living such good lives, obeying His instruction because of our gratefulness for what he has done and for the freedom we have been given.
And yet, the pious will continue to self-righteously bring before God their resume of “glowing marks” and outstanding accomplishments, ignoring the fact that scripture calls those acts “filthy rags”. We cannot hope to impress God by any actions of our own, after all He is our creator and upon finishing his great masterpiece declared it good. It is completely arrogant for anyone to truly believe that they could impress the maker of the planets, stars, sun and moon. As scripture points out, “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” (NLT)
Now all this talk of living free of guilt and shame when we accept Gods free gifts of salvation and grace are wonderfully poignant but in the reality of our lives it is a painstakingly difficult idea to grasp or live out. Truth is, that in all areas of society we are governed by certain rules that convey to us, whether audibly or not, that we must earn respect, raises, good grades, trust, love, credit, etc. As we learn from an early age, “there is no such thing as a free lunch”. Growing up in such an atmosphere makes it difficult for us to accept God’s grace without any strings attached.
Scripture tells us “without faith it is impossible to please God”. I would argue that those who strive to please God have in actuality little, to no faith at all. They have no faith that He is in control, that he has forgiven them, that he cares for them and that his grace is enough. Perhaps to appease their own guilty conscience, they strive for the approval of God, however, being faithless they toil and labor in vain. In effect their actions and good works give witness to their unbelief.
The thing that struck me the most about the God that Mack encountered in last years ever-popular book The Shack was a God who, being omniscient, had no need to place any expectations upon His beloved creation. In the book, God explains to Mack that because He does not place any expectations upon us, we therefore never disappoint Him. I don’t know about you, but from where I’ve been within the “church world” the idea that we never disappoint God is revolutionary. Such a truth should free us from all of our fruitless striving to please God and allow us to instead live truly fulfilling spiritual lives.
It is only out of such knowledge as this that we can actually desire to live and succeed in living holy lives, knowing that if we stumble somewhere along the way that we haven’t disappointed God. The point of living our lives at a higher standard isn’t to please God, which we have already established we cannot do, but simply because it is a healthier way to live this life.
Every one of us can relate to the terrible sting, stigma and struggles caused by failure in our lives, whether it has attached itself to a marriage, job, business, friendship, ministry or whatever. The possibility of failure is the cause of many detours and delays in our lives as we are paralyzed by fear and worry.
Yet, there remains one area of our lives we are afforded freedom from the weight of doubt, fear and guilt associated with failure and that place is in our relationship with God. He gives us everything we need for life and life abundantly without our having to strive to earn it. It’s a win, win situation really…how could we fail?
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