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.

Psalm 63 Desiring God???

In this Psalm David is experiencing a crisis. Worse than that it is a family crisis. Double worse than that is: HE BROUGHT THE CRISIS ON HIMSELF!! Now when I read this Psalm the background is not immediately apparent. But reading in 2 Samuel 14:10-11 we get the basis for this crisis. David is confronted by Nathan regarding what David did in committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having her husband murdered to cover it up since she was pregnant. When Nathan confronts David, it is then after almost a year of misery and agony of broken fellowship with God that David confesses in the biblical sense of the word. We know this because Psalms 32 and 51 are the result of his confession. Nathan assures David he is forgiven. BUT...there are going to be consequences even though there is forgiveness. It is difficult to separate the two. Consequences are the built-in results of violating Scripture, whether I am conscious of it or not. David knows he is forgiven. The consequences for David will be family division, strife, conflict, and violence. And it starts immediately. About 11 years later, David's son Absalom has positioned himself to stage a political coup against David. Rather than fight his son, David flees the palace and hides in the wilderness. This is where Psalm 63 fits. Even though David knows he is experiencing a family crisis he brought on himself, he is very sure of something else: the presence of God in his life. He is experiencing God's protection (Absalom wanted him very dead), God's provision, along with God's presence. He is experiencing what is written in Psalm 46:1 that God "is a very present help in trouble." David had an unbreakable relationship with God and at this point in his life he is experiencing what Paul describes as a "grace greater than all our sin" (Romans 5:20). So here is the point: God does not desert us in trouble even if we bring the trouble on ourselves. David learned that God pursues those He loves even when they mess it up very badly. He learned God would never "let go of his hand even when he messes up" (Psalm 37:23-24). As a result of learning this he was able to say: "I love being loved by You more than I love being alive" (63:3). He experienced what God told His people in Exodus 34:14, that God is very jealous in His relationship with His people and will do whatever it takes to secure their love. So what is better than life: knowing I have an unbreakable relationship with God, absolute forgiveness, His presence with me in the worst of times no matter what, watching Him change people’s lives and reconcile them, that the best is yet to come, and that God pursues me every day because He is jealous of His relationship with me. This kind of God is the kind, once known like this, is very desirable to know and love.

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."

Feeling Abandoned by God

Psalm 22 is usually considered Christological. It is normally thought of in its relation to Christ at the crucifixion. It is right to think that but it is easy to ignore the fact that the writer was going through a most stressful and painful time. When he wrote this it was not with the thought in mind of some future prediction about someone else. He wrote this about himself during a specific time of great hardship and pressure. He really did feel abandoned by God. I suppose many believers in Christ can identify with this. They have either done something very foolish or are experiencing difficulties and pain such as never before. Even though the writer is describing how he feels in relation to God and the world around him, there are two key phrases that make the difference: "Yet You" and "But You, O LORD." Not only does the writer, David, feel abandoned by God, he also tells how he just is not functioning very well in daily life (vs. 14), he describes himself as broken and useless (vs. 15), and also in that verse says he has no hope and thinks of dying. This describes quite well a dark period in my life that lasted for at least 15 years. That is a long time to feel abandoned by God, to consider oneself useless and unable to understand why he was still alive. To top it off there were peers that indicated in past conversations that if I ever failed as I did, God would put me on a shelf for the rest of my life. I missed or was not paying attention to those phrases: "Yet You" and "But You, O LORD" even though I had read them several times. When David uses the word "LORD" he is using the covenant name for God. This evokes the memory of God's promises to be near to support His people and to protect them. I will never understand in this life why I missed this during that period. So I hang onto vss. 9-10. Because God has shown His love to David from birth, God has a purpose for him. God did not set His love on him just to later abandon him. In Psalm 138:8 he is able to confidently say that God "will acomplish His purpose for me." God never abandons those He has set His love on. One other way to look at it would be as Jacob did in Genesis 48:15 when he said that God had been his shepherd every day all his life clear up to this point when he was dying. And he knew God would take him all the way. So when I feel abandoned by God, whether it is because of something I have done or not, this is the hope and promise God never stops working His purpose out for me and will shepherd me all the way until I am with Him face to face.

Was God Real to Me in 2009?

As I look back over the past year, I have been reminded to ask myself: "Where was God in my life in 2009?" The Bible speaks of His attributes: faithful, gracious, merciful, forgiving, sovereign, love, kindness, generous, etc. But the challenge presented to me was: "Where can you point to a specific time when God was faithful to you, when He was merciful, when He was forgiving? Hudson Taylor used to pray "Lord Jesus, be to me a bright, living reality." He prayed this every day. That means he was looking for God to be God in his life. So as the year passed, God was being God, but where did I miss it? For example, God has promised in Philippians 1:6 and Psalm 138:8 that He will continue His work in me until the day I die and enter His presence forever. This speaks about His faithfulness. "He that promised is faithful" (Hebrews 10:23). Can I point to specific times when I saw God work in my life; actually deal with me and change me? God has made specific and definite promises that He actually intends to keep. 2 Timothy 2:13 says: "If we believe not, He remains faithful for He cannot disown Himself." Inspite of my unbelief, God still remains faithful. Another example is seen in 1 Corinthians 10:13: "God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but He will, with the temptation, also provide a way of escape that you may be able to endure it." In other words, God will not allow something to come into to my life that the only way out of it is to sin. Can I look back and see when He did that in my life? If I cannot point to specifics of God's faithfulness in my life, what a wasted year! It is similar to what Jacob said in Genesis 28:16: "Surely the Lord is in this place and I wasn't even aware of it."
So what I plan to do is to keep track of what I see God do that is a demonstration of His attributes. I am going to make a chart of those characteristics of God along with related Scriptures and watch for God's working in me, just like He promised. Join me.

What is God Doing in Your Life?

Do you ever get asked that question by anyone? It is a good one to ask and to be asked. Usually most of us that call ourselves believers in Christ think that, for the most part, being redeemed to spend eternity with Christ in Heaven is about all there is. Maybe living a moral life, going to a good church, and trying to be a nice neighbor helps. But is that all there is?


I have often wondered what Christ meant when He said He came to give life "abundantly" (John 10:10). If that is so, what would that look like in daily life? Put that verse together with Philippians 1:6: "He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ." So if I understand that verse correctly using proper hermeneutical principles, it tells me that when I became a believer in Christ, He started a work in me, my core personality, the "real me." Whatever that work is, it has to be something other than what already characterized my life.

Consequently, there must be something that Christ is up to in my life every day. Wouldn't it be nice to know what it is?

As I read 2 Peter 3-11 I discover what He is up to. Every day something will happen that will give me an opportunity to grow in these areas. For some reason that seems important to Christ because at the end of the passage the reward is a rich welcome in Heaven. I get the idea that not everyone gets a rich welcome.

So, as I see it, Jesus Christ is very interested in me today. He is focused on changing me and He gives clues to what kind of change and how it is being done and why. Nice.
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Is the Bible Really Enough?

Is the Bible really enough for all that truly matters in life? It does make that claim itself (2 Peter 1:3ff). So for a life that is truly pleasing to God, I will find what I need in Scripture.

If I am having a conflict with my wife or someone else, experiencing depression, anxiety, or struggling with being a people-pleaser, the Word of God addresses this. In fact Scripture will uncover the root of the issue, sort it out, deal with it, and show me how to walk in a way reflects the way Christ lived.

It does get discouraging at times to see believers in Christ get enamored over the latest book or seminar that is not much more than repackaged secular psychology with a few verses of Scripture thrown in to make it seem plausible.

I am amazed when I see how Scripture deals with the root causes of ADHD, addictions of every kind, fear, OCD, and depression. The Bible truly is amazing. And adequate.