Scriptorium Daily
Every once in a while I get an email from a friend facing failure. He or she will tell me of sins they have committed or bad things that happened that have taken them from “promising” to “could have been.” A marriage that began with romance has ended in divorce. A grad school career that started with the excitement of the acceptance letter has petered out in mediocrity. A friendship that started in excitement has died in acrimony.
It is bad news when you are, in the words of William Shatner, “never were” instead of “has been.”
How do you go on living when you haven’t lived up to your promise?
This is a question I have faced myself and there is no easy answer to it. It is hard to accept failure, especially when my own faults and sins have scarred me. I know the truth of the old saying, “a bird with a broken pinion never flies as high again.”
And I want to fly.
Of course, one problem is how we judge success. God wants us to become good. Anybody at anytime can start the long slow process to sainthood. There is always room at the top in Heaven and the purgation can start anywhere.
This is true, but hard to believe.
I always said that the most important thing to me was not outside acclaim, but serving God. My failures have given me a chance to see if that is true. Too often we say we want to be just and good, but are most interested in appearing to be just and good.
My failures at least freed me of that error. If I am still here, then I must go on living and give myself to God. He can transform me. I can love those around me, even if they will not love me back the way I wish.
Is it a success to demonstrate God’s amazing grace?
Of course it is, even if that will never get me on the cover of my college alum magazine.
Perhaps more difficult is when our life turns out to be so average. We were honor students, prizewinners, really great. Right? Why then do we look so much like our parents? We don’t quite realize the arrogance and stupidity of such statements and, God love them, our parents are too humble and good to point it out to us.
Frank Capra taught one generation of Americans to value the average and the steady. He reminded us of the greatness of the man or woman who does their simple duty. Sometimes we don’t achieve our goals simply because our goals were foolish.
God needed one steadier citizen, while we wished to be President. God help us, but we are snobs, but worse, stupid in our snobbery. Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, loves us, but that is not enough. We demand treats and prizes and awards. We want everyone to recognize that He is lucky we love him back.
This is silly. Our good education is not wasted if we spend it being decent and virtuous. Our promise has been fulfilled if we do our duty and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. I know this: Torrey Honors will have been a good place if it educated decent men and women or men and women sensible enough to know that they need to become decent when their “cleverness” finally fails them.
No man or woman is a failure who serves God, even if that service begins, like the Thief, as they are dying on a cross. Surely if there was ever man who failed to live up to his promise, it was that thief. He was condemned and dying. His life was a waste. Nobody knew his name, but one Man.
But what a Man!
One Man still cared. One Man reached out to him as both were dying. There was still time to become a citizen of Paradise and what is better than that?
What God has taught me in a life of “never was” is that He is a God of second and even third chances. While I may never fly again, He can teach me to sing. I am a bird with broken pinions, but He is teaching me to sing in the choirs of Heaven.
Nobody still alive is a failure. Nobody still alive is a “never was” or “has been.” We, all of us, have a chance to begin again and see God.
Really.
We think the way back is too long and it might be if our goals are still worldly acclaim, but if we simply turn around, Father is waiting. He is waiting to put a ring on our finger and a robe on our back. He rejects no repentant soul.
He can save sinners such as we are.
Thanks be to God.
