F

The word ‘fail’ came into my vocabulary, as it did with most everyone in my generation I think, when I went to school. I knew very little of real failure in those days. It’s one thing to bring home a D, it’s another to be the successful businessmen who said, “I’d give it all up in an instant for a relationship with my daughter”. It’s one thing to fail a grade. It’s quite something else to fail life!

Patrick Morley is fond of saying ‘no man plans to fail’, and he is unquestionably right. No man sets out in life with the intent to crash and burn. We have the need to succeed. We are absolutely compelled by it; driven. Our self-worth is on the line. And it isn’t just about academics or job performance and recognition. It isn’t just about football or the kind of car we drive or what we wear. It includes all of the interpersonal aspects of life as well. We need to show the world what we’re made of, to prove ourselves, to VALIDATE ourselves.

But, we have a problem, and no matter how desperately hard we might try, we just can’t seem to shake the nagging suspicion that we aren’t cutting it; not really.

Then what?!!!

Typically, what happens is DENIAL. We become what Brennan Manning called ‘posers’. We attempt to put a bold face (lie) on it for other people who all seem to be cutting it, even if inside we are caving. We can even become quite good at it. We put on the bravado, get a bit of a swagger going and adopt some socially acceptable version of a macho man.

“Most of what you encounter when you meet a man is façade, an elaborate fig leaf, a brilliant disguise.” John Eldredge

Sometimes it can get difficult to know just who we are trying to convince. James talks about the ability we have to ‘deceive ourselves’. And I think that sometimes we do manage to convince ourselves, but it’s just a masquerade after all, and the truth has a way of breaking up our carefully crafted stories as the cracks slowly deepen and widen over time.

Then what?!!!

At some point in a man’s life, sooner or later, if he has the good fortune of it, he will be squarely confronted with his own personal INADEQUACY in a way that is both brutal and merciful. God will call his bluff. The word of God pulls back the covers to expose all of us as failures. We fail, every single one of us, to live up to the full potential of the life God created us for. It’s not an easy pill to swallow. Pride gets in the way for most people, but here’s the truth.

“Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.” Rom 3:19,20

None of us measures up. But just when we think the hammer is going to come down, what’s this? … Grace, God’s amazing and matchless grace, freely given to all who will let go of their pride and take hold of the gift of Jesus Christ.

“… For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Rom 3:23,24

“Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded….” Rom 3:27

I have nothing to prove. No reason to boast, or doubt. No reason to pretend. Free, just to live. O, I can fall back into the politics of pretending alright, but when I do, it is just a memory lapse, then I am reminded again – Jesus really did away with the need for any of that. He took it all; every bit of it!

Then what?!!!

“His compassion never fails … His mercies are new every morning.” Lam 3:22,23