ONE MORE TIME

“The righteous falls seven times and rises again...” – Proverbs 24:16

Everyone goes through things in life that can potentially knock them down. No one however becomes a failure for falling; you only become a failure when you fail to rise again!

The word of God warns us to expect life challenges. Obstacles and oppositions will trip us, but we only truly fail when we quit trying to get it right. A righteous person may fall seven times but finds strength and courage in the Word to rise again each time and get on with life.

David faced a lot of opposition and disappointments in his quest to take his rightful place on the throne, but he never gave up trying. At one time his enemies ravaged his base at Ziklag and took his family and those of his men captive. Those men who had loyally fought alongside with him are now disillusioned and threaten to stone him to death. David however did not see this as the end of the road for him: he encouraged himself in the LORD his God.[i]

David fell but did not stay down! He encouraged himself, he got back up again, and led out his men to get their families back. The righteous never quits but presses on with strong confidence in the Lord. This is the will of God.

Don’t count yourself a failure in a area of life yet. Learn from your mistakes; get back up to your feet one more time – the grace of God is sufficient for you!

[i] 1 Samuel 30:6

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

OUR SUFFICIENCY

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it .” Psalms 81:10 This passage speaks eloquently also and with relevance to us, who have been called out of darkness and into God's marvellous light, about our relationship with our redeemer. The LORD our God is not out-dated and He is certainly not incapable. He is timeless and still all powerful; as gracious today, merciful, loving, and just as He ever was. The Lord our God who delivered Israel from Egypt is the same God who died for our sins and rose again for our justification. He is the same yesterday, today and forever; a jealous God who demands the loyalty of His people and will not share His glory. Furthermore, we are reminded that the Lord is our sufficiency: “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” ! These words conjure up the image of a nest full young hungry birds with their mouths open wide waiting expectantly for their parents to stuff them full with food. T
Read more

TRIED AND PURIFIED

"For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried." ( Psalm 66:10 ) One of the certainties of our relationship with God is that our confidence in Him will be tested, tried and purified. God’s love for His children means that He also wants us to be purified. This will require trying and testing. The symbolism of our reflection passage is very interesting. Silver, an impressive shinny precious metal starts out as a lump of earth mixed with traces of silver ore. But soon it goes through a fiery refining process and from the other end emerges a precious metal. The adversities, obstacles and challenges you face in life are the furnace of life in which you are being tried and tested, and the contaminants removed just as silver is tried and purified in the furnace of fire to extract that spotless piece of valuable metal with a sheen that can never be tarnished.  It is never comfortable when we face these oppositions, but they bring out the best in us. And w
Read more

FIRST THINGS FIRST

“Finish your outdoor work and get your fields ready; after that, build your house”. (Proverbs 24:27) There is order in life. No successful completion can emerge from an ill-conceived foundation. God is not the author of confusion. The wisdom of the passage of our focus in today’s reflection is this: It impresses upon us the value of carefully planning and organising our day as opposed to simply jumping at the first thing that grabs our attention. There is a time for everything and each must be done in its proper season. First, get the fields ready and get all the outdoor preparation for cultivation done as the planting season approaches. Next, it is then time to build the house. The implication is obvious: God is interested in how we use our time. God challenges us to daily set our priorities right. Failing this, we will find ourselves jumping from one thing to the next without any goal, and at the end of the day, our busyness would not have translated to anything of significance
Read more