Failure Isn't Final

I've been a little quiet on the western front lately.  Has anyone noticed?  Probably not. I've been hiding/mourning since my Texas Rangers let a World Series title slip through their fingers because they couldn't get one strike - twice.  Oh, the disappointment of it all.  Oh, the SHAME of it all.  So much so that I couldn't bring myself to watch Friday night, and I haven't listened to any of my usual sports venues since.  Sports have ceased to exist at my house.

Overreacting you say?  Fair weather fan you say?  Perhaps.  Except that I still have a closet full of Ranger gear, and eventually the pain of losing will fade.  And my boasting will remain silent for a time, but then they'll do spectacular again, and I'll have to be ridiculous. 'Tis the way of the sports world.

You've heard the saying, "Christians shoot their wounded."  Right?  And like you I can remember specific incidents in which that has happened.  We do so like our rules and regulations - and that grace word?  - well, surely you know that if you break one of the many 'laws' (spoken or unspoken) it no longer applies to you?  And we know that because . . . . what?  You mean scripture doesn't back that up?  As one of Jason's classmates at HSU once said,  "Well, I disagree with Paul here . . ."  (really, a classmate did say that)

Anybody ever read the story of David?  Yep, I'm back to 2 Samuel.  David was such a good boy in 1 Samuel.  And then his tiara got a little tarnished.

It was spring, and he didn't want to play war.  So he ended up with Bathsheba.  And it went downhill from there.  He committed adultery, he betrayed one of his longtime friends, he used others to do his dirty work, he committed murder, and he was an absent father.  And those are just some of the things we read about in scripture.  I mean, he may not have used the KJV exclusively, and he probably liked contemporary music.  The horror of it all.

And yet at the end of David's life we see that he has been front and center in his kingdom. He's made preparation for the building of the temple, he exhorts, he encourages, he challenges . . .  At his death there is no mention of his sin -- only his length of tenure, where he reigned, and that he died at a ripe old age.  And in other places he is called 'a man after God's own heart.'   Repentance.  Grace.  A life celebrated.

God's forgiveness is real.  And if God can forgive what is our problem?  It says to me that we have set ourselves up as god.  Blasphemy in its purest form.

Failure isn't final.  The Bible tells me so.