January 24,1998
Dear Br. Fred:
Have you ever watched a small child learning to walk. Carefully, with great trepidation, he lets go of his mother’s or father’s hand, his small hands waving around, he cautiously takes his first step and promptly falls down and cries.
You encourage him to get up and try again, but instead of complying,
he kicks and screams his utter inability to learn to walk, assuring
you and himself that he will never get the hang of it, for hasn’t
he tried and failed, preferring to crawl through life instead
of learning this crazy business of walking.
You stand there, watching your son or daughter happily crawling
while refusing to even consider the possibility that he can learn
to walk and shake your head in bewildered disbelief.
I wonder how many Christians are like this petulant child. We
know Christ desires us to obey in some particular point, we try,
but fail. Its impossible, we whale in his compassionate ear, I
tried and failed, I can’t possibly do as you desire, I’m
a failure.
He may urge us to get up and try again, but resolutely and defiantly,
we refuse, affirming, instead, in a loud voice, that he is unjust
and unfair in requiring us to obey when we can’t do it.
I read a humorous but profound definition of a hero that went
something like this. “A hero is someone who hangs on a minute
longer.”
As you know from your own personal experience, perseverance is
the key to success. While knowledge, intellect, and ability are
important, the man who keeps on trying finally sells the property,
gets the job, climbs the mountain, learns to use the computer,
or walks, rather then crawls.
Perseverance separates those who succeed from those who fail.
Failure, then is not a mater of our birth, circumstances in life,
race, or intelligence, but a matter of how many times we get up
and try again.
This basic reality is true in the Christian life also. God may
point out our duty, we may desire to follow him, but we fall into
sin or transgression. Do we remain there?
Christ said, “if you confess your sins he is faithful and
just to forgive your sins and to cleanse us from all righteousness.”
But how many times can we fail and start over again? Christ answered
this question when he told Peter, in answer to his puzzle, that
we should forgive our neighbor seven times seventy or 490 times,
PER DAY!
No baby has ever yet fallen 490 times in a single day. If he does
that baby has what it takes to succeed in business before his
first birthday.
If Christ is wiling to forgive us this many times a day, it is
certain that he is willing to help us to walk the Christian life
no matter how many times we fail.
How many success stories do you know where the man or woman would
not give up and eventually reached their goal. Neither time, nor
circumstances, could prevent them and they become inspirations
to all of us.
Several years ago, I read a story in the Reader’s Digest
of a man who fell into a deep well. He was alone at the time and
nobody would miss him for several days. If he were to live and
escape the trap, he alone would accomplish the feat.
The fact that he wrote the story is mute testimony to his tenacity
in the face of overwhelming odds. How many stories of bravery
and courage are never written because their authors failed to
exert persistence and died? How many success stories are unwritten
because their author’s gave up, often on the very threshold
of success.
While heaven is not obtained by our persistence endeavors, the
Christian experience is replete with men and women who believed
God and would not give up their trust in him despite their repeated
failures to live up to his high standards.
We do not scale the walls of heaven through our own efforts but
through faith in Christ for he has promised to do for us what
we cannot do for ourselves, which is everything.
If you are troubled over failures to live as Christ desires, take
courage and try again, but our trying is not human strength or
courage, but through faith. If we sin, let us not become disheartened,
but confess our sin, and, through Christ’s strength, try
again.
Hell is populated with those who failed while heaven is filled
with people who succeeded through faith. There is no arbitrary
block that frustrates some and opens the way to others. Everyone
is invited to enter heaven, only those who refuse to believe Christ’s
righteousness will be shut out, not by caprice or whim but by
their own choice. They failed when success beckoned all along
the road to heaven.
Dear brother, Christ encourages you to try again to walk by faith.
If you have failed, take heart, Christ stands ready to assist
you again.
Never has a sinner reached such a condition where he can never
attain to the high standards Christ has set for us unless he voluntarily
chooses to distrust God.
No baby has ever yet failed to learn to walk who possessed the
necessary legs and muscles. Similarly no Christian need fail of
complying with the conditions of eternity for Christ has already
freely forgiven us and given us his righteousness which are the
child’s legs and muscles in my parable.
Why then will Christians fail where babies succeed? Because we
chose not to believe that we are walking already.
Dear Brother, be strong to trust the Lord and do the right thing.
May the Lord bless you with abundance of faith and a clear mind
to comprehend his free gift or righteousness.
Allen A. Benson