Failure

Failure to Obey

God had been giving me a direct order to stop watching TV at night and spend my time with Him or at work for His purposes, writing for one. But I’ve been failing. I keep going back to my old routine of getting off work and doing a load of dishes or laundry and then plopping on my chair to zone out in front of the TV. I felt frustrated with myself. Feeling ashamed and guilty for my disobedience, I brought it to Him in prayer.

“How and what do you want me to do to make this new habit work?”

Then He joked around with me and said, “Don’t ride a horse backwards, that’s for sure.”

He broke me out of my guilt and disgust with myself by making me laugh. He is such a precious Father. With that one statement, He helped me to understand that He wasn’t mad at me, and He was there to help. His patience is beyond understanding.

When he said not to ride a horse backwards, what He meant was that it was ridiculous to look backwards toward my old way of doing things. I needed to look toward His new plan for a new habit to be formed.

Two days later, to my disgust, I struggled with the same thing. He showed me a giant cavern that needed to be climbed up and out of. Above the cavern was a bright light, and I understood that’s where I needed to be. As I looked up the sides of the cavern, I saw 12 feet up a giant crevice. I understood the crevice was what I needed to use to climb. I asked Him, “How would I even get up to the crack?”

He said, “Jump up to the fissure and then climb. The first part is always the worst.”

“What if I fail?”

“You will fail until you succeed. Daughter, can you ask for help? Why are you trying to do this with just sheer willpower? You have the Holy Spirit to call on and work with to help you.”

Of course, how could I have forgotten that? And yet we do, don’t we? We look at a command and start to work on it. Not sure how we are going to do it, only sure that God deserves our obedience, so we try “to make it happen.”

There is nothing He commands us to do that doesn’t require the help of the Holy Spirit.

No matter how small or large the task, we need Him. Some things He asks us to do, seem familiar, so we assume we can do it based on our experiences. We are wrong. Some things He asks us to do, seem so difficult or impossible that we don’t know where to start, but we jump in anyway, determined to make it happen. To prove that we are worthy to follow Him to call ourselves a Christian. We choose to prove our worth to ourselves and anyone we think might be watching. Of course, when you look back on it, you can easily see that the whole thing is pride.

Ugh, I fell to pride again. Thank goodness we serve a patient, faithful and righteous King. He won’t give us a command that He doesn’t help us with. When we ask, of course.

Failure can leave us stuck. We aren't sure how to get out of the mess we made. But there is hope in God.

Don’t try to ride a horse backwards and do it all yourself. I’m hoping that when I head down a path filled with pride, self-righteousness and self-sufficiency that I immediately stop in my tracks and determine which way my head is facing.

“[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while [a]effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and [b]delight.” (Philippians 2:13, AMPC)

Prayer for you and me. Jesus, I’m lost on where to start. You’ve told me what to do. Now I need Your power and sovereign wisdom to help me obey. To obey when I don’t understand, when it’s tough, or even when it appears to be easy. Thank You, Jesus. Amen.