When I Fall...

...I will rise.

Oh, do we need to hear those words. I need to hear those words! I need to hear them every time I blow it, slip, stumble, and fall - sin. But often I lay there like a figther on the canvas after a upper cut to the chin. I'm stunned, embarrassed, and guilt ridden because I either didn't see it coming or I didn't get out of the way.

Damn it - is what I scream in my head - I did it again (whatever the it/sin is). God won't want me close now. I'm too messed up. I'll just crawl off the mat and not deal with God for awhile. I KNOW He doesn't want to deal with me. And so I struggle to find that place of reconnection and intimacy with my God who loves me so much.

Whether it's greed, laziness, pride, or self-righteousness, it all gets me. But none of them get me or our culture more so than the sexual junk. That's seems to be the most crippling.

So if you are like me, check out this article by John Piper. It's called "Gutsy Guilt". It was a great word for me. Here is a taste:

Verwer's [a speaker Piper heard] burden at that conference was the tragic number of young people who at one point in their lives dreamed of radical obedience to Jesus, but then faded away into useless American prosperity. A gnawing sense of guilt and unworthiness over sexual failure gradually gave way to spiritual powerlessness and the dead-end dream of middle-class security and comfort.

In other words, what seemed so tragic to George Verwer—as it does to me—is that so many young people are being lost to the cause of Christ's mission because they are not taught how to deal with the guilt of sexual failure. The problem is not just how not to fail. The problem is how to deal with failure so that it doesn't sweep away your whole life into wasted mediocrity with no impact for Christ.

The great tragedy is not masturbation or fornication or pornography. The tragedy is that Satan uses guilt from these failures to strip you of every radical dream you ever had or might have. In their place, he gives you a happy, safe, secure, American life of superficial pleasures, until you die in your lakeside rocking chair.

May that draw you into read. May we all be inspired and empowered to live with guts.