Tuesday, February 28, 2006

failure

today i feel like a failure. so i went to Jesus and i asked him to minister to my soul. i asked him to show me truth. i looked in my concordance, because i didn't know where else to look, and i wrote down every reference to the subject failure i could find. there were 5.

one was samson in judges 14. the reference was to the time he disobeyed God and his family by finding a wife from another lineage and it caused a lot of problems, but ultimately God was glorified as huge things happened.

two was the isrealites in psalm 106. we all know the story. they sought God, they abandoned God, they sought God, they abandoned God, etc.

three, four, and five were the story of peter as recorded in matthew, mark, and luke. we know this story too. peter denied Jesus three times after swearing he could never do such a thing. and then he wept bitterly.

that was it. these were all my concordance had to say about the subject of failures. so i can't help but think the definition of a failure should be someone who disobeys God. but that's not what i was looking for when i searched my bible. i was looking for examples of times people had failed at something they had set out to do or accomplish to see how God reacted, how they reacted. i wanted comfort and to not feel quite so alone. instead i found people who screwed up, but they were only labeled as a failure because they failed to obey God, not because they failed at a task.

i feel like a failure as a missionary, as a child of God, as a friend, as a human. i look at myself as a failure because i did things that weren't good enough, i didn't quite pass the test. i set out to battle and came home the loser-i failed.

i've been trying to come up with something hopeful to put at the end of this. but i've got nothing. i'll go back to peter for a minute. he wept bitterly. but then, in acts 2, he is walking humbly with his Lord and God is doing amazing things through his life. i can't wait until i get past the weeping bitterly phase of this all.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

beginnings

I am sitting in the loft of Calle Zarco 602 Norte. I have nothing more to add right now.