Failure

"It's not my fault!" If I hear in once (okay, I say it as well,) I hear it a million times a day. I bet it is your (my) fault.

 

Somewhere in life, we embraced the assumption that we must be perfect in order to be acceptable. Acceptable to ourselves and to others. The Christian story says we are forgivable because we cannot pull off "perfect." Perfection is a prison of lies, blame and merciless unworthiness. Forgiveness is freeing. We get a do-over. Since I will never be perfect, I would love to be forgiven. Voila! God forgives. I got the story I wanted.

 

So why do we wink at each other and play the perfection game? You've got me. I don't know but I bet it has to do with not fully embracing Jesus and his forgiveness. We know that he expects us to follow him. And he does. We also know we don't do that all the time. But forgiveness is not conditional. Jesus just forgives. We don't need to earn it.  The prison we create (is this Hell?) is ours to keep, however, if we go it alone. Bad choice.

 

Let someone, heck lots of people, be forgiven today. Embrace imperfection and depend on forgiveness. Life is not a test but an experiment. God has us covered if the experiment blows up once in a while.

 

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. - Thomas Edison