When You Have Failed Miserably

What do you do when you realize the decision you have made was wrong and is now irreversible? The consequences have only started and you now begin to recognize that those consequences are only going to get worse? You also realize that the decision(s) you made was not only wrong but sin against God, let alone sin against others. Several things may be happening. Maybe you have been a “runner,” a person who ran from difficulties in the past, whether actually picking up, getting in the car, and driving somewhere to escape, or just checking out with drink, drugs, sex, endless mind numbing entertainment, or a thousand other ways of trying to cope without physically escaping. The point is, you have failed miserably and cannot reverse the failure or its consequences. The ex has remarried, you have been fired for your own stupidity, you are sitting in jail or about to, or you have health issues which are the result of a desire-led style of living. There is that old expression: The chickens have come home to roost. Not only are they roosting and refusing to roost elsewhere, they are also laying their eggs which hatch into more chickens who like to roost.
The pain of regret is here to stay and there are times you can actually feel the pain itself. Then you start to realize that, because the decisions are irreversible, you will probably have this pain for the rest of your life. Someone may have even said to you: “You made your bed, now lie in it.” Great comfort especially if you are not sleeping well. Even if there were other contributing factors to the situation, you know you made the decision on your own. You may have thought there was no other logical decision to make. Now that nagging conscience will probably never let you forget what you have done. Oh yeah, if others were involved and hurt in the process, you are always going to remember that too.
Now let’s take it up a notch. Suppose you have friends who tell you that you have failed so badly that God will probably reject you also. They even have Scripture to back it up. Now you realize you are losing your friends. They think you are a bad influence and because God has “put you on a shelf,” you just are not the kind of friend they need. They know they cannot help you much except maybe to pray for you for a little while. So if you start to look for new friends (probably in another church if you haven’t quit the church), you do not tell them much about where you are coming from for fear they will reject you also. Sadly enough, some still will decide being your friend is not in their best interest.
In summary so far it may look like this: you have failed miserably, the consequences have started, your life is over as you knew it, your friends are getting fewer, it may be costing you materially, you cannot go back and do it over and keep wishing you could, and you see no way back to any kind of life with meaning or purpose; you will probably always be a second rate believer in Christ. The pain of regret and the sullenness that can settle in have the ability to cripple you for the rest of your life.
King David is probably the ultimate example of someone who had a pretty good life and chucked it all for a few minutes in the sack with another man’s wife. Just think: he had a loyal wife, or two, kids who blessed the home, possessions, and the love and respect of an entire nation. He could not run; he was the ruler of the land. Not only does he start with the bad decision to sleep with this woman, he tries to cover it up and it keeps getting worse (he has her husband killed; this is what they make movies about). One wrong decision and he keeps making more wrong decisions as if he had no other choice. Eventually everyone knew what he had done. There was no place he could go in his kingdom where someone did not know what had happened.
We know from Scripture that David was very miserable for about a year. It appears he had done nothing to try and deal with the situation. He has trouble sleeping. You would think that even now being married to this other woman whom the Bible describes as very beautiful, he could sleep. After all she was the one who was worth leaving his family for. You would think, that being king, he could lose himself in luxury, travel, activity, and a multitude of other things to occupy his mind and help him forget what he had done. But he was very miserable and the Bible tells us why. He knew he had sinned greatly against God (Psalm 51). Oh he had sinned against others in this also, but he had enjoyed such an intimate relationship with God that he knew he had failed miserably. He also began to have health issues because of how failing God had affected him.
So, how do you get back? What do you do when you cannot reverse the wrong decisions you have made? What do you do when the consequences seem to be more than you can bear at times? What do you do when you know you will never forget this awful time, even though when you were deciding to sin it did not seem awful but the most wonderful thing in the world?
Fortunately God Himself offers the most wonderful counsel in this. And if we are ever going to be able to live with God, ourselves, or anyone else, we are going to have to listen to His counsel. If we are even going to experience meaning and purpose in life after what we have done, it is going to have to come from God. Is there a better way than living as a miserable failure?
There is and David himself shows us how. Psalm 51 points the way. This Scripture is actually a prayer, a song that begins by asking God for His grace: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies” (vs. 1). He presents a bold request for pardon based on what he knew of the nature and character of God: “Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin…purge me…and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (vs. 2, 7). Imagine! Whiter than snow! Even after what he did! He knew God was a God of mercy. So he begged for mercy. He wasn’t asking God to change the circumstances. He was asking God to forgive him. It is pretty obvious that just before he slipped into bed with her that he was NOT thinking: “I know this is wrong, but I also know God will forgive me.” We know he wasn’t thinking about that because in another place he asks God to keep him from presumptuous sin for it seems that maybe God does not forgive presumptuous sin. The reason for that is there is no repentance tied to presumptuous sin; thus no true confession.
He was so confident that God would forgive him that he also asked God to “restore to me the joy of Your salvation” (vs. 12). Since this is a song, he was singing it to God. Can you imagine singing to God with a clear conscience after doing what you did? In this David reveals the secret to dismantling the crippling power of wrong choices: we must not allow the painful reality of our sin to get the upper hand by throwing a dark shadow over the grace and forgiveness God offers us in Christ. We can get so obsessed with regret that we no longer stand in awe of a God who delights in restoring hopelessly flawed sinners.
After David was restored to God, he told others of what God had done for him (vs. 13). There were probably a few who did not care to listen for they would never forget what he did. But God no longer held it against David. The consequences did not magically disappear (and some things were really going to get worse), but the guilt was gone. David was able to rebuild his life on the mercy, forgiveness, and grace of God. He probably never forgot what he did, but he knew those thoughts did not have to keep him as a miserable failure.
Probably all of us have made decisions we wish we could reverse. There are those of us who still experience the pain of what those decisions really cost. 1 John 1:7 offers unbelievable hope: “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.” In that verse we have fellowship with other believers in Christ (maybe new friends), fellowship with Christ, and continual forgiveness. We have new purpose and meaning. We do not have to be defined by our failures. Our hope is in Christ alone. We are beginning to see what a wonderful Savior Christ really is. There is an old hymn that says it well:

Sin and despair, like the sea waves cold,
Threaten the soul with infinite loss;
Grace that is greater, yes, grace untold,
Points to the refuge, the mighty cross.

If Only

Probably more than any other two words these can be the most haunting and painful. We look back and consider decisions that were made for whatever good or bad reasons and say: "If only..." If only I had not gone to _________. If only I had only waited for _______. If only I had not said _________. If only I had just believed God. This last sentence sums it up. We just refused to believe God. Either will did not know, but more than likely, just did not believe that God knows all and especially that He knows best.If only can sure be a weight and burden to carry around. So think of this: Is it possible God knew you were going to say or do what you did? Is is possible that God was still ruling His universe when that happened? Think of this verse from the New Living Translation: "Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods!" (Romans 11:33)Could God have prevented what I said or did? Of course He could have. So since He did not, if only ...The best question to ask then is "Where is God in this picture?" The Scripture for a good reason says that God is able to "bring beauty out of ashes." God will never waste anything that seems a waste to me. Since He does know tomorrow and how I will handle it (Psa 139), and since He still loves me, I can trust Him for tomorrow and for yesterday and for all the times I have said: "If only..."

The God of Second Chances

Psalm 40 is a favorite for me as the author is speaking about how God rescued him, put him back on his feet, and led him onward. Even though there is no verse anywhere is the Bible where God promises a second chance per se, it is His pattern in forgiveness and restoration. David, in Psalm 40, speaks of the plans God has for him. Those plans outnumber David's failures. He never seemed to wade into a situation with the attitude, "I know what I am doing is wrong, but I know God will forgive me." In fact, he prayed to be kept from such presumption. It may be God will not forgive simply because He forgive a repentant heart, not a presumptous heart. Anyone entering wilfully and intentionally into sin thinking that God will forgive them does not understand God. He does forgive true confessed sin, but not presumption. Even though more is written about David than about most anyone else in the Bible, we also read more of his failures. He did mess it up a few times and most likely more than we read about for in Psalm 40 he speaks of his sins as numerous as the hairs on his head. For some reason God seems to delight in rescuing His children from their failures in order to reveal His great redemptive plans in them and to those watching. God not only forgives but He restores. What makes David stand out is that he continually sought the Lord even when he failed. He did not try and clean himself up first before seeking the Lord. It wouldn't have worked that way. The sovereign, loving God is continually at work in the lives of His own who repeatedly fail. In Psalm 37:23-24 we are assured that WHEN we fall, God is still holding our hand and will not let go. David anticipated failing again simply because he knew he was an active sinner. But he made no excuse for his failures and he repeatedly sought the Lord in his failures. This may be one reason why God Himself called David a "man after His own heart."

The Second, Third, etc. Time Around

One of my favorite people of the Bible is David. Two things stand out to me about him: he was a man after God's heart, and he failed alot and big. It isn't so much that he failed but that he continued to get back up with God's grace and keep going. This was because he was a man after God's heart. Most think about his failure with Bathsheeba but there were others. His first marriage failed, he caused the death of a lot of his people by his own arrogance, he failed with his kids, and the list goes on. I would suppose that because he was a leader God let us see more of his life. Not that his failures did not cost him. The consequences for some of them were enormous and lifelong. Psalm Three talks about what happened after the Bathsheeba affair. The first two verses explain a bleak situation. There did not seem to be very many of his friends left. He had a lot of enemies, the chief of which at this time, was his own son. He wanted David dead. His enemies were speaking about him behind his back and possibly to his face. What they said is what is so significant in this psalm. They were saying that because of his failures God had forsaken David; that God had given up on him. More modern terminology (the kind of which I personally heard toward me) was that God put him on a shelf for the rest of his life. However, David knew this was not true. Whether or not he would be restored as king, he still knew God had not forsaken or given up on him. David referred to God as a shield around him. As a result he could get a good night's sleep because he knew God had not given up on him and was still taking care of him. SO...
Regardless of the failure, even though forgiveness is promised for all sin, the promise of God still holds: "He will accomplish His purpose for me" (Psa 138:8). "He who began a good work in me will continue it until the day I face Him" (Phil 1:6). There are other Scriptures along this line but these two keep me going. The same God who held David by the hand WHEN he fell (Psa 37:23-24)is also holding mine and will never let go. God does not promise second or third chances per se, but He seems to like to give them to those after His heart.