Three days into the New Year, and already I feel like a failure. Impatient words that spill out…too-tired tumbling into bed instead of feeding the tired soul… the long-suffering sigh that could have been a smile…a deadline already missed…and a storm of tears unexpectedly burst over an evening. Check. Check. Check. The list of my failures goes on and there is an Enemy who is quick to mark them black and big. And I think of what the older woman told me just a couple weeks ago, that “whatever you are doing on New Year’s Day, you’ll be doing all year.” I laughed at the time, fending it off easily with good humor, but now it feels like too big a burden to carry, the weight of days ahead in light of my weakness. And the Enemy of our hearts is whispering loudly that it’s no more than he expected and after all, this is only who I am.
But we talked about that in small group on Sunday, how he prowls like a lion, his single purpose to destroy our devotion to Christ, fight tooth and nail against God’s glory. The struggle may be his own refusal to submit to his Creator, but we are caught in the crossfire as God’s Image Bearers, and the battle plays out in our minds and our hearts in the most mundane of Everyday. “Whatever you are doing on New Year’s Day, you’ll be doing all year.” Failed in the smallest of things, and no undoing it now. This could be a black hole, swallowing my whole world if I keep listening. But Truth stands firm, like a beacon in the darkness: “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to Him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.” (Romans 8:1-2)
So here I am at the beginning of a New Year wearing all these labels, staggering hard already….and I fall flat on the Truth: I am sinful but I have a Savior. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31) He gives His righteousness for my sin, His strength for my weakness, His hope and peace for the days to come. I hate that I will be doing this all year long– but if my failures drive me into the loving arms of a Savior, that is not the worst thing. Paul’s confident declaration of victory rings out through the ages: “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.” (Romans 8:38)
Today I read a mentor-sister’s confession of the beginning of her year and I see that I am not alone– the old saying is true for all of us on the Faith-journey. We will be falling and standing up again, choosing, and being made new every day for the next year… if we want to be. We get to choose who to listen to. We get to choose whether to surrender our failures to Christ and let Him make us new, or to let the labels of the Enemy hang like millstones around our necks, pulling us down into despair. We are clay pots in process, and that’s who we really are in Christ… and it will not surprise the Father at all when we turn out for His glory in the end.
“Oh great love of God,
Who takes away the sin of all of us–
Gone forever!
Heaven opened wide in your resurrection;
You won’t be denied bringing life to the dead and dying;
You won’t be denied: we will rise and we’ll sing forever…”
(Oh Great Love of God, David Crowder Band)
“Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.” (Romans 8:33-34)
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