Fail

I get so annoyed by failure. And by failure, I mean that inability to do a task or challenge or an incapacity to come through for a loved one. I’m not talking about missing the mark, or an error or a mistake. I’m talking about making the same mistake over and over again. Part of me hates failure because it’s such a helpless feeling. Part of me hates failure because I come face to face with my brokenness.

These past few weeks, I’ve come face to face with failures in many aspects of my life. This season of Lent has begun to lay bare some of the ways that I’ve failed through my selfishness or stubbornness or just simply my shortcomings. It’s a dark and humbling place to be stripped bare by the work God does through our inadequacies.

Despite my annoyance, what I’m coming to believe is that it is in my failures that God’s grace is the richest. This is elementary and some of you are probably saying “Welcome. How are you just now catching on to this?" I’m not. But what I am catching on to is the depth of that rich grace. It is God’s grace that reminds me that my failure as a husband or father is covered and redeemed. It is His grace that overwhelms the smallness that comes with failing at my job. I have yet to discover the bottom of those riches.

It’s in failure where we see and know that grace is the beautiful thing at play, not our work.